Aerial Cabling

[alphie]

I've been lurking on these forums ever since I got my 2002 172 but I've never seen any mention of DAB Digital Radio. In a previous car (against the standard advice) I just made an adapter and connected the car's FM aerial cable to the DAB aerial socket on the radio. After shortening the cheap whip aerial it worked very well - certainly much better than a glass mount aerial.

Unfortunately that trick didn't work as well in the 172 and my reception is pretty bad. I'm thinking of buying a DAB aerial, preferably one that takes phantom power to a built-in amp like this one. The two things that make me apprehensive are:

1. How easy will it be to pull through additional cables? Can I use the existing cable as a pull-through?
2. Will it be easy to remove the existing antenna mount and is the hole likely to be a standard size that a replacement will fit into?

Has anybody any experience of doing any of this? I'd really appreciate hearing about it before I get into spending money and pulling the interior of my car apart!

If pulling the cable is going to be difficult, I might just go for a DAB only antenna (never use FM/AM anyway) and just use the existing cabling.
http://www.panorama-antennas.com/pa/gb/sc/catalogue/DAB.htm

 

[MT AUDIO]

you can buy an adapter which will use the original aerial for dab and change it from standard to dab without bodging.

 

[alphie]

You mean one of these? I don't think these convert anything, they just let you use one aerial for FM and DAB at the same time. I don't think they would give any better result than my current set up of using an FM aerial for DAB.

How do you figure that using a purpose-built aerial with a built in amplifier and properly matched cable is bodging!? I would have said that using a 'magic box' to try and make up for the wrong aerial and cabling was more of a bodge-up.

So, anyone know the aerial cable route or ever tried pulling a new one?

 

[alphie]

Aerial Cabling follow-up

Well, I've finally got things working the way I wanted, so I thought I'd post what I've learned since I couldn't find much when I originally looked.

I got fed up with not getting enough time to run new co-ax and fit a proper DAB/FM antenna. Also, the price (over £100 for the aerial I wanted) and lack of knowledge about how easy the cable run would be persuaded me to give the magic box a try. After waiting ages to get it (apparently it was built to order) I fitted it with disappointing results. The reception was worse than with a passive converter. Today I got some time to do some detective work.

I thought the problem might have been a head amp in the aerial base which was filtering out DAB frequencies. This was probably what stopped my passive solution from working but it turns out the new problem was that the autoleads converter can't use phantom power from the radio (like other devices I've used) but requires connection of its power lead to the aerial power output. Unfortunately the car's wiring loom already uses this to power the aerial's own amp so it wasn't as simple as just plugging it in. I tried disconnecting the aerial's amp and connecting only the adapter's power, but without success. I ended up soldering them together in the back of the ISO connector and voila, decent DAB reception. I haven't had a good drive around, but it seems much better than it has ever been.

On a slight side note, I finally had the guts to try and pull of a panel to get my hand into the back of the radio and pull the cables into space (the radio barely fits without the huge wad of cables behind it). Maybe it's common knowledge, but the panel just above beween the cup holders and the AC control panel pops off quite easily if you pull it horizonally. This let me pull all the gubbins including interface boxes down away from the radio, The panel is also pliable enough that I was able to pass an RCA-3.5mm jack lead through for my aux-in and still clip it back on. This means when I'm not using it, it can be neatly coiled in the cup holder (I doubt I could fit a cup in there anyway!) I suppose a slight vairation would be to drill a hole in the panel and add a chassis-mount 3.5mm socket. This would save you from having a lead hanging out all the time.

 

[MT AUDIO]

sorry i didnt get back to you.did the part which you put above pc6-536,would have told you these worked if id seen it,used it before as ive found the uv reflective windscreen stops the signal,seat alhambra was what i found this out with,same problem then