This evening I fitted one of my Christmas presents (better late than never!) - A Shark fin aerial. I had tried to fit this before and found the connection in the roof liner is not a standard connection. I bought a DIN (female) to Fakra (Male) connector and after some fiddling got it sorted tonight (slightly after dark!) I will post up some pics when I get a chance.

The aerial works - although slightly crackly at times and I thought it would be worth asking you guys whether you had changed the aerial and encountered any problems? I keep thinking there must be a better way of making the connection although don't want to run new cabling to the front.

The new setup is the aerial - DIN cable (about 1.5 metres in length) -> DIN (Female connection) to Fakra (Male connection) with plastic plug removed and tape to hold it to -> Skoda / VAG connection which runs to the stereo.

Cheers Rich.

My experience with the shark fin ariels is they look cool but don't work that well on VAG or our cars.

Bad reception as the ariel needs to be long on ours. I even boosted mine with a second amplifier module but gave up in the end and went back to std ariel.

why is the aerial so poor on the octavia?

The standard Octy aerial has an amplifier/booster in the base. Maybe these after market shark aerials don't. Mind you if you could get a proper one from say an Audi that might work ok....

That said, I can't even get a standard base to work very well at the moment :-(

The standard Octy aerial has an amplifier/booster in the base. Maybe these after market shark aerials don't. Mind you if you could get a proper one from say an Audi that might work ok....

That said, I can't even get a standard base to work very well at the moment :-(

But even when you attached a amplifier/booster to those after market shark fins they are still s***e.

Well on the octy anyway..

But even when you attached a amlpifier/booster to those after market shark fins they are still s***e.

Well on the octy anyway..

Maybe the aftermarket ones are just rubbish. I collected a couple of standard bases from some mk4 Golfs the other weekend and they seem a bit naff too :-(

Very true thinking about it - the standard one has an amplifier in it which I did spray with contact cleaner after my initial look at the install. That improved it if anything. Reception is rubbish around here anyway (mid wales) so I tend to listen to CD's.

I love the look of the new aerial - makes the car look a lot better, so I will probably keep it atm. Cheers for the info and opinions

Old post I know but how did you get to the nut on the mast base on the inside? What bits did you take off? I've got a VAG shark fin I;ve got to install. The old factory one is looking well ropey and I'm tired of looking at it. Don't really care about the radio reception as I seldom listen to the radio unless it's for RDS traffic info on long trips. Thanks.

You have to remove the plastic trim along the top by the roof lining, its just clipped in.

Once that is off you'll need a pair of pliers to retrieve the clips that got left behind in the car body to refit onto the trim.

Then pull away the side trims from the boot sides enough to free the roof lining,

once thats done gently pull the roof lining down just enough to get access to the nut. Do NOT lower any more than necessary or you will put a crease in the headlining.

disconnect the wiring before loosening the nut.

Using two people (one to hold the base from the outside) undo the nut.

Swap bases and reassemble.

Make sure the base of the replacement is a good fit, otherwise you'll get water coming into the car through the hole. The Octavia roof is curved, and the base you buy should come with a thin gasket that sites between the base and the body (like the OEM one has).

I have a Mazda 6 stick(with no base) ,it fits perfect and I think has a better reception.