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Radio Grief Grrrrrrrrr!


Mutley

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So for some reason I cannot get the Land Rover single CD radio to get a good reception!?!

Now it is wire with a permanent live (to work with ignition off) and also wired into the cigar lighter enabling it to work off the ignition.

With the engine off it works,some what..... When it searches will only find x1 channel????? But shows the stereo sign and sound quality is good!

With engine running it wont find any channels on the search but will go to pre-set channel when pressed, but then it sounds very crackly!?!

And it's driving me NUTS!!!!!!!!!!

Things I have done

1......Checked all connections and made good

2.......Put a second earth on from radio to fuse box

3........Made sure aerial connection is good!...... Cheap crappie little rubber aerial (but had same issue with a normal aerial though!)

Now one thing I have noticed is that where the radio is situated in the dash channel smack in the middle just below the ashtray, there is a metal plate that just behind the vents of the dash panel (which seem to cause some static only noticed when moving the radio about). Please don't suggest moving it as this is the only place to put it in reach and away from the gear stick.

Any suggestions or help with this would be great..

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If it's reception problems then check the aerial. It must have a good earth at its base (underside of the metal it is mounted on). Without this it doesn't function as a proper receptor. The semi circular mount must be pulled up tight by the action of the nut on the top side.

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Do you have other electronics plugged in - mobile charger, satnav, ipod power ?

I found quite a few of the dc-dc converters used in (usually ebay quality) power adapters chuck out enough noise onto the 12V power to wipe out radio stations that are already on the weak side.

If there's a connection available, make sure the radio aerial screen makes a good connection to the vehicle body. If there isn't a connection, add one!

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The filters in radio sets are known to fail, the bit that does all the mixing and filtering to get the correct frequency. Typical symptoms are crackling and loss of sensitivity until it gives up all together. Try another head, if it's fine then there's your problem. By the time you have paid a techy to find the offending filter, swap it/them out you may have well bought a new head unit from your favorite ICE store.

If you've confirmed both aerials are good, and have good earths and no breaks in the centre core (cheepie rubber and steel rod ones use solid centre cores which can break losing signal). With the head out, slide a long shaft screw driver carefully into the socket, it should pick up close FM stations with no problem, or with a long scrap wire bared wire, radio 4 on LW with little trouble if the head is ok.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Finally!!!........RESULT!!!!........Yeeeeeeeha

Well after checking all the connections some several hundred times, with no difference this includes aerial cable ( some times it was ok ish other times total crackling, but never when I moved a wire/cable so could never narrow the problem down????). I was pretty sure the radio wires and connections were good so this then only left the aerial cable, as I have about 5m of tv aerial cable I put a connector on the end plugged it in to the radio and fixed the other end to the aerial (with the old cable removed) and got every station on search, well happy. So cut the TV cable down and made it all neat and tidy.

on inspecting the old original cable I could see no visible damage but when I cut the cable close to the wing mount fixing it was green and badly corroded! This could have took for ever to solve as there was no way of knowing that the cable was corroded on the inside? But now fitted with a good thick TV cable and getting a strong signal hopefully this will last.

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