SWMBO's '11 plate vRS has said Shark Fin + Short Ariel fitted to her car, but, a Bolero head-unit, rather than a sat-nav, so why not just the "normal" radio antenna?

 

FWIW, she does have the multi-function steering wheel c/w bluetooth, could that be the answer?

 

DC

the shark fin could be for 3 reasons

 

Factory Navigation

 

Factory Telephone

 

Not sure if this was available in the UK. Remote Park Heating webasto type

It will be because of the bluetooth mine was the same.

Mine has one because i'm addicted to dicking around with cars.

Car is of the age that it likely has OEM GSM3 Bluetooth. Rather than just being a simple bluetooth connection, on these cars the module has a GSM module of its own. With phones that can support the rSAP profile the module itself becomes the mobile handset simply using the bluetooth connection to access the SIM card remotely.

Not many phones nowadays support this v well (you'll see the BT icon plus the words "Premium" if your phone is working in this manner) but the main benefit being that the car has its own GSM antenna (hence the shark fin) and can offer improved signal quality.

IF using a non rSAP compliant handset it will connect using the more common UHV method rendering the roof antenna unused.

Earlier cars had GSM2 modules, UHV only and so normal FM roof antenna.

Thanks pipsyp, explanation received & (almost) understood......

 

It explains why I received a text message whilst driving which can only be read from the car's displays & which is not recorded in the phones call log.

 

I'm guessing that the Columbus unit in my Superb is similar, (shark fin minus the stick aerial) in both cars the phones switch to "remote sim " mode & the BT Premium icon appears in the maxidot display.

 

As for phones, they are all over a year old, & we are not into "upgrading" too often, perhaps we should keep them as long as we have these cars!

 

Thanks again for a lucid explanation, at least I guessed correctly that the shark fin installation was related to the Bluetooth facility.

 

 

DC