hi everyone, i wonder if anyone can help, im having some trouble with my gps so took my aerial off thought it was because the insides of the aerial base was waterlogged, seems ok. the aerial had 3 wires attached to it but only two were connected, there was no other linkage from the radio to be seen to attach to the 3rd wire. what are the 3 wires for.

dawn

The usual three are FM (radio), GPS (sat nav) & GSM (telephone).

Are they coloured FAKRA connectors or three different connectors?

3 different connectors definately not fakra connectors, one was black which had to be pushed up and twisted one was a small metal connector which was threaded the one not in use was grey in colour and different from the other two.

dawn

Pre-FL Octavia then?

The one that needs pushing up is a RAKu (or RAKU II) connector for FM;

The small threaded one is, AFAIK, GPS;

Which means the third (unused one) is GSM / Telephone.

Do you have a Bluetooth module under the driver's / passengers seat?

If not, then there is no reason to have the third wire connected to anything at all (they wouldn't waste money by putting in a wire that didn't go to anything - but that doesn't explain why they put a triplex antenna in and not a duplex (FM / GPS) one in... Mystery.

thanks freedom for your help. a guy around were i live had a look at the back of my radio unit, he noticed the aerial wire was roughly attached to the radio unit, he reckons the previous owner might have had another radio installed with bluetooth etc and when he traded it in replaced the original unit(the one in the car now) and took his bluetooth one out. That may explain the bad aerial connection and also the antenna with 3 wires. The reason i originally asked about the 3 wires was because im having trouble with the navigation/gps part of the unit and was wondering if the wires coming out of the antenna were part of the problem.

dawn

If you have a Columbus unit fitted press the 'Map' button to bring up the maps, then press it again to bring up the split screen.

One of the options in the split screen (tap the bar with writing in at the top to bring up the options), the last in the list, will show you details about the GPS status including how many satellites it can see and how many it is tracking. You can use this as a rough guide to see if any wiggling of the connectors makes any difference.

You'll need at least 4 for a proper 3D fix on position.

I'm guessing that you have one of these aerials. In which case the metal screw in one is the GPS cable.

Yes thats the aerial on my octavia and all the connectors look right, ill have to check later on the gps. thanks dawn

hi freedom pressed the map button and came across this page, not very clear oops.

my gps shows the map around were i live but the triangle that should show were i am is located about a mile away so if i put a destination in the gps follows the route from the wrong place. could this be due to the aerial. dawn

Sorry. I thought you had a Columbus...

And I'm not familiar with your head unit to be able to offer much advice based upon that picture.

Try what has been suggested with the aerial connection on the rear of the head unit first.

hi all just an update had a friend look at the radio unit, he unscrewed it, disconnected the blue connector blew on it replaced it and voila the sat nav works like a dream, who'd have thought it.

dawn

Glad it was simple. And cost effective.