UKC

All of a sudden, my car radio wont pick up any stations well enought to listen to except radio 2 (could be worse it could be r1) which seems to be near perfect reception

was working fine until wednesday, but suddenly all my other fm stations are fuzz, and ive completely lost all mw stations, and cant get r4lw either. Both mw and lw are completely silent.

Any ideas?

In reply to balmybaldwin:

Have you considered an exorcism?

In reply to balmybaldwin:

Has your aerial fallen off/disconnected?

In reply to balmybaldwin:
Assuming aerial has not disconnected and it has an electronic program store, delete all, update and restore?

In reply to balmybaldwin:

Try aerial on the roof, then aerial behind the stereo, then unplug (completely from the car) for an hour or so so it discharges completely. Then plug back in and reprogramme. If its none of these then it could be a severed cable between aerial and radio perhaps, or just a radio fault?

In reply to balmybaldwin:

I like the exorcism idea, but with my last car the reason for only picking up the strongest FM station was that a marten had chewed off the aerial.

CB

In reply to balmybaldwin:

thats no bad thing. Mine sometimes picks up radio 1 aswell

In reply to balmybaldwin:

A radio permanently tuned to radio 2 - Excellent (I am over 40).

In reply to balmybaldwin:

Ive checked ariel, and its still there, and screwed in tight. Will have a poke around the back of the radio in the morning. Problem is im not sur I can get it out as its a built in job

In reply to balmybaldwin:

We had an import once that could only get Radio 2. Not very helpful, sorry.

In reply to crisp:


But what about radio 4?

In reply to balmybaldwin:


You may need special tools that slide down the sides and unclip hidden bits.
Have a Google, there are some universal kits available for removing stereos.

In reply to balmybaldwin:
Are you just clicking the pre selects, or are you actively searching for channels ?

In reply to balmybaldwin:

Unscrew and check/clean off any corrosion (its been a bit wet). Last car was particularly bad, it became a "three monthly operation" with noticeable results.

In reply to crisp:


Come on! If you spend more than 20 mins in the car, Radio 4 is the only way to go.

In reply to butteredfrog:


Agree, when I am on my own it is my favorite ,but my wife hates R4 and prefers 'popular music'
( because she has a 'young outlook on life ' - and I'm an old fart, apparently)

I can't stand her music, so it is usually stoney silence sometimes for hours with the radio switched off.
(I mean it's not like we are going to chat after 39 years together

In reply to balmybaldwin:

What car is it?

In reply to balmybaldwin:

Maybe www.fitaudio.com will have the instructions on how to remove the stereo?

I know some cars need quite a bit of trim removing before you can get it out - my old Fiesta was a nightmare!

In reply to ewar woowar:


Jag xtype...going to have a look now.

In reply to balmybaldwin:

There y' go.

The radio in those is designed to only receive R2!

;~))

In reply to balmybaldwin:

Have you tried turning it off then on again?

In reply to balmybaldwin:

also does this kind of topic warrant a Help! in the title? surely thats a bit ott

In reply to balmybaldwin:

If you pull the radio out leaving the electrics, can you remove the existing Ariel , and plug in a spare one ( you may have to earth it to the bodywork)

Or swap for a spare radio that you know works
( my shed has several, I assume others do to)

In reply to Jim C:

My problem is working out how to remove the unit

In reply to balmybaldwin:
I presume you've tried googling for instructions?
Did you find this: youtube.com/watch?v=G-7DhH2xQQE& Any help?

In reply to balmybaldwin:

Our BMW radio suddenly changed one day to only pick up one station. After a lot of googling we realised it had somehow set itself to a default country of japan. We went into the setup (you tube assisted) and changed it. All was fine after that. Strange, but true.

In reply to deepsoup:

I did look, but didnt find that. It does look a lot different to mine, but im guessing the access is the same.

Further fiddling today has led me to suspect the aerial, as depending on how I wiggle it, I did get 5live for a few moments. I did get a replacement aerial about 6 months ago as some scrote nicked the original, so will try a real jag one from a friends car tomorrow and see if that sorts it.

If it doesnt, then I may look into installing a dab conversion while im at it... anyone got any experience of these? Do they work well?

In reply to balmybaldwin: My car (peugeot 206) did the same thing some time ago. I solved the problem by just listening to CDs (although they don't give a very good traffic report)...

In reply to balmybaldwin:

We got a second hand Renault Trafic recently and initially it seemed that only a few stations could be found in a station scan, but after investigation it turned out there's a setting to scan everything or to scan only pre-tuned stations and it was set to the latter. Wasn't at all intuitive.
Maybe you've activated a similar setting by accident?

In reply to balmybaldwin:

Panel around hazard unclips, two torx 30 behind there, unclip ashtray and maybe gear gaitor surround. There's a flat plastic cover behind ash tray. Unclip that, two more torx, whole lot then can be removed.

Remove antenna plug and use a short piece of wire to touch on centre antenna pin, test radio for other stations.

Let us know what you find!

In reply to balmybaldwin:

Sell your car ASAP

In reply to ceri:

My Focus radio gradually got fuzzier or intermittant reception for a while before ceasing to work completely. Replaced the external aerial with no difference and the radio with a slightly upgraded 6-disk one from eBay, which worked for a while and then gave up the ghost in the same fashion.

After that, I just stuck with CDs until I sold the car.