hi guys 

 

im considering. upgrading my aerial for a dab+ aerial. There any many different choices but the sellers aretatinn.   

Edited 27 June, 20205 yr by Kevlil

I’m sorry about the half post but I pressed the wrong key. What it should have read was: 

 

im considering. upgrading my aerial for a dab+ aerial. There any many different choices but the sellers are Saying that they won’t work if my aerial is amplified. Can anyone tell me if my Mk2 fl Octavia Vrs which has the standard beesting is amplified. Has anyone upgraded their aerial for dab and if so what they recommend please?  I have one in my windscreen and it’s worse than useless

 

AFAIK the beesting antennae are all amplified, shouldn't make a difference... easy to cut its power and make it passive.

Thanks a lot! Do you know if it is easy to do?

I have had my car's apart to see why the poor reception - corroded small PCB in the antenna base.

 

That was a while ago and I can't recall the details other than I solder bridged the PCB for a passive antenna, some reception is better than none!

 

Access is by pulling a bit of plastic trim off and getting between the roof material and the steel roof.  As I recall the antenna is secured by a single nut, whether the antenna coaxial and amplifier power leads are separate or combined I forget.

 

Don't jump the gun though, fit your radio and worry about the antenna later, it's possible the Skoda radio feeds the antenna amp through a single coaxial cable so another radio will see it as a passive anyway as it will be unpowered unless it has an option to power an antenna.

 

A case of suck it and see.

 

This may be required if the unpowered antenna reception is unsatisfactory:

 

Edited 28 June, 20205 yr by MicMac

I believe all of the aerials are amplified, and the power is sent down the coax cable too so there is no separate power cable.

 

I replaced my standard bee sting aerial (AM/FM only) with the VW shark fin aerial (FM/AM, DAB, GPS, Blueooth). Any DAB aerial will receive DAB+ too, it's the same frequencies just more efficient encoding/modulation.

 

You can see a couple of photos in my project thread here: 

and the part number for the shark fin is 6R0035501D - I got mine on eBay brand new for £70 delivered

 

Thanks Nick that’s really helpful! Are they easy to wire (sharks fin)

Are you replacing your stereo with one that has DAB? If so which one?

 

There's no "wiring in" as such, the aerial has 4 short cables coming from it which all have the standard fakra connectors on and they are colour coded. Assuming your car was not specified with DAB / sat nav / telephone preparation from the factory, you won't have wiring in the roof lining for anything other than FM/AM aerial which is a white fakra connector. As it says in my project thread I bought some 5 metre extension cables with the appropriate fakra connectors on the ends and ran these through the roof lining down the passenger A pillar and behind the console to the stereo. If you're upgrading to an OEM Skoda/VW unit then you just plug the cables straight in as it'll all be the appropriate fakra connectors on there, colour coded.

 

I installed an aftermarket stereo which has a SMA connector for the GPS antenna and an MCX connector for the DAB antenna so I had to buy some adapter cables too.

 

Installing the aerial and putting the cables through was an extremely easy job, the only tool you need really is a socket big enough to get the nut off that holds the roof aerial on.

I have already fitted A pioneer sph230 dab, apologies for the delay in replying