Forum:
Hi,
I have just fitted my alpine Cd/radio from my last car into my much loved sporty. When i had the old radio in it my reception was fine. When i had the alpine in my last car the radio reception was fantastic. Now that i have fitted the alpine into my sporty the radio reception is so bad that i can only pick up classic FM (which is not my chosen station!)
Please Help, CD's are good but im going crazy without the radio to keep me company on my way to work! 
Several points to consider. F
Several points to consider. Firstly, it is very possible that if your previous car had in-line signal amplification as just about everything does now, and tuners are now by default lazy things. So, if you had one of those screw-off plastic jobs, you can bet you had an amp.
Next up, check the continuity of the actual aerial to the bodywork - this is vital, because the body acts as the 'groundplane' for reception, the steel bit only in effect increases the size & height of the plane (technical jargon I know) so clean up where it earths. The have a look along the coaxial cable - any splits/damage? Any silly add-ons? Is the plug OK? If any of this is suspect, then it all affects the 'Gain' of the system.
If it still does not pick up effectively, cheap amps (generally with a small dipole-type antenna) are easily and cheaply got from motorist shops.
But what you can always do (as I have done with the Kenwood in ours) is to take it off auto search and manually programme the frequencies of your favourite stations in, and rely on that. Or you could go to a nearby hill, and run it on auto search where it should pick up and store more. Stations such as Classic don't have as many TX sites as, say, BBC R2, so they tend to crank up the power on the ones they do have to compensate.
Dave with a Sporty
Dave with a Sporty
thanks
cheers for that, i will do a little investigating tomorrow
radio reception
And I thought it was just me!
Had two radios in my sporty now which worked fine in the cars I took them out of (both previous cars of mine) and the reception is awful. I have checked the aerial connectors and co-axial cable, the earth connectors and even tried a new aerial but there must be something about sporties.
http://www.dirtyswine4x4.co.uk
Dirtyswine4x4.co.uk
radio connection
i have manually searched but still to no avail.
When i fitted the radio the aerial connection did not match the slot to plug it into on the radio. I bought a metal thingy (technical term!) which made it possible to attach to redio, could this be causing the problem? The radio that was originally in the car picked up frequencys fine.