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VVC-Geeza
11th May 2011, 15:17
What sort of radio reception do you get on the AM band?

Mine is pretty poor where'as it was perfect with the OEM head unit.

The reason this bothers me is the two stations i mainly listen to,Talk Sport and 5 Live, are both on this band.They are also available through the DVB-T box but unfortunately reception breaks up somewhat when on the move.

Do we have to accept that AM reception quality on the DD is just not as good as OE,or can we improve it?

HarryM1BYT
11th May 2011, 15:35
Mine is now pretty good, as good as you could expect from AM.

VVC-Geeza
11th May 2011, 15:40
Mine is now pretty good, as good as you could expect from AM.

Have you improved it in some way Harry?

Mine was crystal clear with the OE head set,now it sounds as though it's not correctly tuned to the station,with lots of hiss.

HarryM1BYT
11th May 2011, 16:25
I'm using the built-in single Rover antenna, the built-in Rover antenna pre-amp and use a completely separate antenna, feeder coax and amp for the TMC.

Most of my poor reception troubles on AM and FM were due to the ISO to DIN coax adaptor, which was supplied with the DD. The Rover coax ended in a ISO plug end in the wheel well to feed the (Hi-Line) radio tuner mounted in the well. To adapt from ISO plug to the new DIN coax feeding through to the front of the car, I used the supplied adaptor, which in my case was faulty. I cut the ISO plug off and replaced it with a DIN - which entirely resolved all of my reception issues.

For the TMC, I looped 6 to 8 feet of single wire pushed up above the headlining, connected at one end into one of MarkUK's antenna amps mounted along side and fed its 12v from the original Rover antenna amp. I then ran a second coax from that to the TMC. As per my sig - all works as good as any.

VVC-Geeza
11th May 2011, 17:13
This is my question really Harry.Because (in my case) the screen aerial amp is feeding both radio/TMC. Is it degrading the AM signal?Unfortunately Mark and I didn't check AM reception without TMC connected when fitting the DD.Both my other cars and also previously the 75 have/had near perfect reception on AM.

As a matter of interest is there a sronger/better version of the Rover amp?

I'd be interested to hear from others with TMC as to what AM reception is like.

MARKUK
11th May 2011, 18:29
My AM is reasonable OK..as in my videos.....

HarryM1BYT
11th May 2011, 19:19
This is my question really Harry.Because (in my case) the screen aerial amp is feeding both radio/TMC. Is it degrading the AM signal?Unfortunately Mark and I didn't check AM reception without TMC connected when fitting the DD.Both my other cars and also previously the 75 have/had near perfect reception on AM.

As a matter of interest is there a sronger/better version of the Rover amp?

I'd be interested to hear from others with TMC as to what AM reception is like.

It is easy enough to simply pull the DD unit out and disconnect the coax plug to the TMC to check reception - its the one with the short length of coax poking out of the back of the DD.

I'm now a bit confused as to how much difference it made to my reception splitting the coax to both radio and TMC, but I'm sure it did make some difference. As said the major part of my reception problems were due to that ISO/DIN adaptor.

VVC-Geeza
11th May 2011, 19:49
My AM is reasonable OK..as in my videos.....

Hope this isn't a silly question Mark but could another one of your amps be used to further boost the radio signal?

It is easy enough to simply pull the DD unit out and disconnect the coax plug to the TMC to check reception - its the one with the short length of coax poking out of the back of the DD.


Yes..i'm going to check it out :)

MARKUK
11th May 2011, 20:20
Hi Mick,

Not a stupid question at all !...

But the answer is no I am affraid...I tried that as part of the testing process when I started all the TMC stuff off..

You can't really boost an already boosted signal and get a decent result...

VVC-Geeza
15th May 2011, 11:15
I tried AM reception with TMC unplugged and it didn't make any difference,however i nipped up the connection again to the short plug/connector to the DD and it has improved considerably on all stations apart from Talk Sport.Even that is better than it was though :)