Roof antenna (ANT1) "off"

[NeilInExeter]

Hi everyone,

 

I'm not sure this is the right place to post this, so please, if it's in the wrong place feel free to "move" me!

 

I've recently bought a MkII Octavia estate and (other than an AC issue - which I've posted about in another thread), most things are going well... however, the radio seems to have a terrible problem picking up any station well.  It's a Bolero and having followed the method for the secret radio menu online, I found that ANT1 is reporting itself as "OFF".  I worked out that ANT1 is the one on the roof as ANT2 which is reporting as "ON" goes "OFF" when I disconnect the rear window antenna from the cable where it's connected in the rear door pillar (C pillar?).  So, I'm guessing that OFF on ANT1 means it's disconnected but I've removed the radio and it's clearly connected there!  There appears to be no snagging or squishing of the cables as far as I can see in the dashboard before it gets tied into a bit of loom, so my question is, where is the most likely place that this "break" has happened (I'm presuming it's a physically cable broken or damaged somewhere) and what's my best course of action to rectify the problem as it's awful trying to listen to radio when it spends its whole time dropping out!

 

Thanks in advance for thoughts / replies!

 

Neil

PS - pic of the screen showing what I see.

[john999boy]

You normally need a new aerial base as it's quite a common problem. 

[TheClient]

+1 per j999b quite a common reported problem, water ingress, corrosion.  Start by replacing the aerial base...

[NeilInExeter]

Thanks to both John999boy and TheClient for the speedy replies!

 

Since you had both said I was going to have to replace the aerial base, I thought I'd see how easy it was to get at, so I popped out the middle section of the plastic around the boot to make get to the edge of the ceiling panel, and then slid my hand up inside the roof lining carefully to have a bit of a feel around.  I left the radio turned on at the time on the off chance that perhaps I'd wiggle something and it would work better, and would you believe it, I found the little plug/socket that's clipped up onto the metal roof wasn't tight, so I carefully pulled it apart, and re-joined it again, and the radio immediately got a lot better!  I went to have a look at the diagnostics screen and now it says both ANT1 and ANT2 are on!  Brilliant!  Maybe I've just got lucky and it'll stop again on the next pothole or perhaps it is oxidised somewhere and it's just working at the moment, but it is pretty coincidental that it started working just as I pushed the plug back in!  Here's a photo of the bit I'm talking about in case it's useful!

 

 

So thanks again for the pointer - I would have started at the radio end and worked towards the antenna if you'd not said, and that would have been a long job!

 

Cheers

 

Neil

 

[pikpilot]

What did you do to get to the secret Bolera menu?

 

[john999boy]

10 minutes ago, pikpilot said:

What did you do to get to the secret Bolera menu?

 

IIRC it just involves keeping the Setup button pressed for a 'longer' time. 

[NeilInExeter]

Yes, exactly that, with the radio on, press and hold setup button for a few secs, then a settings menu appears, then press FM and it gives you the screen shown in my first post.

[pikpilot]

Thanks guys, I'll give it a go.