Improving car radio reception

S

sunnyday

Guest
Does anyone know of any way to improve the reception quality of a car radio? I've noticed over the years that some tuners work better than others. But apart from changing the model I'm using at the moment, can you get the equivalent of an amplifier or something? What about those "table tennis ball" like gizmos you often see on taxi aerials?
 
You should check if your aerial is broken first! If there is no aerial on the roof or near the front doors, then it could be integrated into the back windscreen of the car, some Fords have this. It looks like a couple of thick lines similar to those in the rear window heater.
 
Does anyone know of any way to improve the reception quality of a car radio?

Buy a Convertible? :)
 
As with any sort of radio signal reception the first thing to check, as mentioned earlier, is the aerial/connection and to make sure that it's neither damaged nor unsuitable for the job.
 
Trust me, my aerial and/or connections are fine. I don't get the one about the convertible I'm afraid! Actually, I have the same problem with the house radios. Living on the outer fringes of Dublin's commuter belt means many of the capital's stations come through quite poorly. For the house radio, I know a external antenna should help. But for the car, I'm still searching for a way to improve it.
 
Your radio probably has an RDS button and if you turn it on it should auto-tune to the strongest alternative frequency for a given station.
 
If you are on the fringes of reliable reception then there's probably not much that you can do. In this context the solution is normally a higher, bigger, larger gain etc. antenna to improve reception of the weak signal but obviously your options are limited in a car! Anything useful ?
 
Not sure how some of [broken link removed] would look on the roof of the car! I'll have to keep researching this, but thanks for the Google link Clubman. I can never come up with a good search strategy on it!
 
Living on the outer fringes of Dublin's commuter belt
Click to expand...

How far out are you. Most of the Dublin stations give a signal that reaches a good distance out.
 
I can pick up Newstalk 106 in Mountrath. Its not great but its good enough for talk radio.
 
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