Wgtn radio reception

[runrabbit]

I know wgtn is a hilly place - but my radio reception is crud.

Stations improve in certain areas, some better than others, but generally over all its rubbish.

I had a new gearbox installed the day before heading to the capital (from auckland), but never had any problems before that.

I wonder if there is a bad earth/loose wire somewhere. I have a older Kenwood headunit which could be on its way out too, but CD\'s play fine, so it doesn\'t seem to be a speaker issue. Only problem is when listening to the radio.

Is this normal in Wgtn??

[Eight_dollar]

It\'s normal mate at least in 3-4 of my subbies in Wellington it was pretty crappy

[tebbyj]

Yep, reception down here is shite, I brought a $20 (got it on special for $10) warehouse booster aerial which has definitely helped with reception and thats just shoved behind the headunit. So i think its a combination of Subaru\'s average aerials and wellingtons hills.

[spark_38]

No. It\'s nothing to do with the gearbox. In Aucks you can get the same signal from Bombays to all the way up North. You can\'t get this in Welli. I\'ve found Kenwood tuners to be pretty good - does yours support RDS?

FM radio signal in Welli is generally crap, and always has been; they have separate transmitters for the Hutt Valley & Wellington - the RDS display changes to reflect this: i.e. "The Sound 97.3 Hutt Valley", "The Sound 97.3 Wellington".

The only two stations with separate freq\'s are: Breeze 94.1 Wel, 98.5 Hutt and More FM 99.7 Wel, 95.3 Hut (if you listen to that crap) - they both support AF (Auto Freq), but this fails outside of Welli region. Classic hits used to have three transmitters on their old 90.0 freq, however they must have dropped one when they switched to 90.1 in favour of RDS radio text/song info support, it was one of the few stations you could get clearly almost everywhere.

Both Hauraki (93.3) and The Rock (96.5), you cannot drive from Upper Hutt to Wellington on SH2 without going scratchy, or fading out - then the stereo keeps auto-tuning trying to find a better signal; when there is none. However if you live on the SH1 side of Welli - this isn\'t an issue

Hauraki is one of the few stations that supports regional/auto tune; so one preset gets you 99.0 (AKL), 96.2 (WAI), 106.5 (CHCH), 93.3 (WEL) - this feature would be useful if they did it nationwide and with ALL stations.

FM is VHF RF comms, and is such is LOS (Line of Sight) transmission - hence it doesn\'t work with the hilly terrain. Other parts of the country don\'t seem to have this issue. Once they switch off the analogue TV signal - they may favour more FM transmitters to alleviate this...

I\'ve noticed it slightly worse in the new car, since it only has CD and radio, no ipod/bluetooth... I find myself listening to a lot of radio. The rear windscreen aerials don\'t seem to work as well as the old \'pop-up\' or A-pillar type styles. Also factory stereos are generally poor quality!

DAB/DAB+ digital radio, like they have in Aussie would definitely alleviate this issue. You wouldn\'t have to keep changing frequencies either for different regions.

A bit of boring Sunday morning dribble... I\'ve been playing with car stereos for over 10 years, and used RDS tuners for the last five or so; since the Kenwood KDC-MP6024. I\'ve also installed and fitted numerous systems for a mates car yard.

[runrabbit]

Cheers Spark for the informative reply.

Current headunit (something similar to KDC-MP425 (too lazy to check car)) doesn\'t have RDS. I\'m mainly on the SH2 side, and the majority of stations are scratchy as hell. Although Thorndon New World carpark seemed to be a sweet spot this afternoon.

I assume there is some interference happening somewhere, as when I retract/extend the side mirrors, the speakers crackle.

might look into upgrading the HU, and getting something with USB and front aux inputs. :

RR

[tebbyj]

 runrabbit said:

I assume there is some interference happening somewhere, as when I retract/extend the side mirrors, the speakers crackle.

This happens to mine aswell even with new aerial installed.

[spark_38]

DAB (Digtal Audio Broadcasting) a.k.a Digital Radio is slowly making it's way into the NZ market. Currently there are 8 stations that DAB/DAB+ tuners can pickup; Base FM, BBC Worldservice, RNZ Concert, Concert Plus, George FM, RNZ National, Radio Spice, Tarana.

Most of the above are provided by the Kordia DAB service (same as freeview).

In Australia, you can buy DAB/DAB+ car stereos (I may get one in November, as you can't buy them yet in NZ).

https://www.jbhifi.com.au/gps-car-audio/sony/sony-xplod-cdxdab500u-208w-in-car-head-unit/376500/

I just picked up one of these: it does Internet radio, DAB+, and analogue FM (with RDS).

Edited September 7, 2014 by spark_38

[spark_38]

DAB+ is currently only offered in NZ, by Kordia on 239.200MHz (in AKL), will check if Welli use the same Freq - if it does, it will alleviate the need to re-tune in different regions - provided they all broadcast the same station ID/Name.

It shouldn't be too long before Mediaworks and TRN offer DAB+ service.

The above unit (Cord Panorama, JB Hi-Fi) is one of the few DAB+ receivers avail on the NZ market - and is quite expensive, $204 with NZDF price. However it is featured packed; Internet Radio, full RDS info (on analogue FM), Aux in and Media Player (with shared music on Windows).