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[oro]

I think the radio reception is poor, not bad, just poor.
If I ask rad to search for stations it does not find them itself, you have to manually serch, is that normal?
I love to listen to Radio 5 during the day but weak signal with too much interferance.
My previous elite, a pre facelit wa the same, is this the norm or is there a fix I can get done please.
many thanks
mike

[Dave DND]

If you have the electrically amplified beesting aerial on the roof, then chances are that it has become waterlogged and burnt out - very common amongst vauxhall vehicles, and easily replaced.

As far a Five live - not so good news.

I have debated this with various officials of the Broadcasting industry to ask if the signal strength of MW is being reduced with the intervention of Digital Radio, but they just smile and refuse to comment - so go figure . . . . .

The downside is that the amount of RF interference being generated inside a car from all the electronics is around the same frequency as the harmonics from many medium wave radio broadcasts and the signal is effectively being calcelled out. It works in teh house, and often if sat in the car with the engine switched off, but once on the move - very poor.

As five Live is not yet on FM (no plans to either) you are faced with either purchasing a DAB stereo, or choosing a different station.

[dejongj]

I think poor is till being too kind, it is absolutely useless. Sometimes it is good but as you say only when manually stored. The auto store facility does not recognise much at all. And even then there is always a spot on the M1 where the radio starts cutting in and out....I mainly listen to Radio 1 and thought that was one of the more powerful ones....

Can't wait to make up my mind on which double din unit to replace it with, if only there are shops you can actually play with them....

[Kevin Wood]

I wouldn't rate the radio in the CCR2006, TBH. I find it distorts on the peaks of even strong FM stations and there are always pops and clicks going on in the background. Tune to to a mainly speech radio station like Radio 4 and the peaks of the speech are horribly distorted. Play a CD or tape and it's fine.

The antenna in my Omega is not ideal (mine is a rear window heater job) but last time my CCR2006 was out of the car I tried it on my rooftop FM aerial (in LOS of Rowridge transmitter) and it was no better.

Kevin

[Dave DND]

Rear window element aerials are far from ideal anyway.

You can`t beat an external aerial.

As an example, that people may relate a little better to . . .

Think of your home TV antenna - big aerial on the roof, and generally pulls in a nice signal - if you put the same aerial inside the loft, the reception is degraded significantly.

back to the car, with the screen aerial that is now inside the cabin of the vehicle - doesn`t matter how many boosters or amplifiers you use, a wet bit of string hanging out the window would often be better !

[zirk]

The Bee Sting Aerials (the very small stubby one's) are a complete waste of time, the Black Helical ones, as fitted as standard should work fairly well (on FM) as there basically a VHF 1/4 wave wire centered at 98 Mhz, and wound arround a piece of fibre glass (ie. a 1/4 Helical).

As for MW and LW (and even SW on some early Meggy's) the Antenna (the bit on the outside) actually works with the rest of the coax feeder inside the Car and acts as a 300/600 Ohm balanced feeder line to the HU RX, add this with possible fault in line Aerial Amplifiers results in a pretty noisey signal picking up most of the Cars electrics rather than the outside Air Waves.

[oro]

So the percieved wisdom, it seems is to get the standard roof mounted aerial checked to make sure connections are good and amplifier is working then be satisfied with the result  OR is there a better aerial option as personally I do not want to go down the route of changing the whole dash radio/cd/tape setup as yet.
Many thanks to all who have replied
Mike

[Dave DND]

Thats pretty much it I`m afraid.

That said, although we are all knocking it, when the system works correctly, with no faulty parts, then a reasonable signal can be expected.

[Entwood]

AKAIK the "beesting" aerial has nothing to do with radio reception .. it is there for phone/satnav on elites...  the radio aerial is built in to the rear screen heater matrix, and there is a control box in the boot area.

I'm probably wrong .. but I don't think so ... an expert will pass by and correct me I'm sure ..

[Dave DND]

Most of the Beesting aerails we see here are standard Generic Vauxhall amplified ones with non phone head units - some have aerial in Matrix, and I guess that some may have a combined one for cellular also, just not ever had to replace one of those here yet.

maybe they are more reliable?

[Marks DTM Calib]

Most of the Beesting aerails we see here are standard Generic Vauxhall amplified ones with non phone head units - some have aerial in Matrix, and I guess that some may have a combined one for cellular also, just not ever had to replace one of those here yet.

maybe they are more reliable?

Most Omegas have the aerial as part of the heated screen, easy to spot as the heating elements have two vertical lines approx 1/4 of the way in from each edge which working as matching strips. If these are present then the roof antenna will be for GSM or GPS or both.

These are linked into an amp/matching unit in the tailgate or below the rear shelf.

And the roof aerials on the Omega are generaly pretty reliable (unlike early Astras etc!).

Plus to be honest the rear screen antenna is far from the worst aerial I have come across in fact it beats most basic whip setups!

What does help is that the amp is close to the antenna and before the long coax run.

The most common cause of reception failure is usualy a break in the coax core conductor near the radio socket follwoing heavy handed radio removal/re-fitting

[Debs.]

The Bee Sting Aerials (the very small stubby one's) are a complete waste of time, the Black Helical ones, as fitted as standard should work fairly well (on FM) as there basically a VHF 1/4 wave wire centered at 98 Mhz, and wound arround a piece of fibre glass (ie. a 1/4 Helical)......
 

Doing much of my driving "out in the styx" here in North Wales, I`ve found the stubby, black-helical aerial on my 1999 CDX to be very poor on F.M.....autoscan never picks up anything, so I have to enter known stations to get anything at all.

But....fiddling about with a electrical test-meter`s insulated flylead one day, I discovered that tying a simple knot in one end of the flylead and dropping the knotted end down over the external base-cone of the black helical aerial would improve reception significantly: I refined the idea a bit and replaced the knotted flylead with a slim, portable transistor radio type, 60 cm.{-ish} long, chromed, telescopic aerial (off an old radio or try Maplins) which I simply attached to the black-helical aerial using black heat-shrink sleeving along the full length of the black-twisty car aerial......`no electrical connection seemed necessary as proximity seems to work fine.

I leave the telescopic 'add-on' extended (except for going through the car wash) and for such a simple 'work-around' fix, the radio reception is so-much improved.  

If the idea of the telescopic 'add-on' doesn`t appeal; you can still try the knotted flylead-cable dropped around the base of the car`s std. aerial to see if there`s any improvement to be had with a better aerial.