Car aerial nightmare! Help!

[dobbslc]

I'm having a mare with my car aerial and need help please! The original electric one was broken by the monkey from National windscreens aged ago and I've tried 2 others that worked but have rusted away.
I've got a new rubber whip type that has been an absolute bustard to fit due to the curved wing and very limited access, it's in but all I get is hiss on FM! If I touch the base of the aerial it picks up fine even with the whip bit unscrewed, it doesn't have the spiked washer in contact with the wing as I had to make some spacers up so would this cause the problem? Can I ground it at the radio end as I'm not taking that aerial out again!
Thanks for any help.

 

[daedalusminos]

The aerial has to be grounded to the body work!

 

[ajlelectronics]

The aerial has to be grounded to the body work!

Rubber duck (helical) aerials seldom work well anyway. The original mast length is a compromise for resonance as it is.
A ground plane connection under the whip, not just an earthed cable is definitely required with either because the whip forms half of a half wave dipole. The other lower half is "imaged" by the metal bodywork.

 

[dobbslc]

I'm never getting that thing grounded to the wing! There's just no space to get to it.
I'll try grounding the coax see if that helps, if not then its £180 for a genuine one

 

[gaz_moose]

just buy an internal mount one.

 

[bourbon]

Coat hanger? used to work for us!

 

[colnerov]

That's only for colour radio.

 

[Melvyn Best]

Touching the aerial and reception improving was always the way to test aerial earth.

 

[jimbo84]

Going slightly off track with this....

Can’t receive any AM radio channels in the car, is this standard for cars or could the aerial be faulty? It’s a 2003 car with a sony head unit that is a few years old but fitted myself so know the aerial is properly connected to the back of the stereo. Aerial is a standard type bendy roof one, a bit tatty in that the rubber has perished but seems to be mechanically connected to the mount ok. Get’s the main FM channels no issue.

 

[ajlelectronics]

Get a Hirschman electric aerial. About £50 and will fit daft profiles. They are OEM to Mercedes I think.

 

[keithski122]

Coat hanger? used to work for us!

I knew of someone who did this, unfortunately he didn't realise there was a 12v feed from the headunit to power an internal booster and blew up the headunit.Costly mistake.

 

[dobbslc]

Get a Hirschman electric aerial. About £50 and will fit daft profiles. They are OEM to Mercedes I think.

Trust me it won't fit! I can only just get my finger tips into the space.

 

[ajlelectronics]

Trust me it won't fit! I can only just get my finger tips into the space.

Look them up, I recall them being available for Mercedes shapes and as OEM so they should. Mercedes don't make them, they buy them in. You might even find that your old contour bits will be reusable

 

[ajlelectronics]

It is a Mercedes, or have I got that wrong?

 

[dobbslc]

Toyota Surf

 

[ajlelectronics]

Toyota Surf

Sorry, not sure where I got Mercedes from.

 

[Chillitt]

Having had endless issues with aerials I saw a DAB adapter in Aldi for 26 quid. Comes with a windscreen aerial. Works a treat. OK I had to take it apart to ditch the wobbly fag lighter plug and hard wire it in, but no more static!

 

[dobbslc]

I had a stick on DAB aerial for the Pure DAB radio and it was crap so got rid of it and got a used Alpine CD / FM sterio off a friend, I just need a working aerial!

 

[dobbslc]

Well to wrap this tail up I've bought a new genuine Toyota electric aerial and have just fitted it and it WORKS!!!

It bolted straight in works properly and I have Radio X