- Dec 4, 2011
- 568
I've been having trouble with reception for the past couple years, but generally it has been fine for my morning drive so I wasn't too worried about it. Last week the reception dropped out almost completely. I can pick up stations in some places (like my driveway), but I'm pretty much dead on the road. I tore my dash apart yesterday to check the antenna as this is the most probable cause and I assumed that because of the sudden drop, the antenna had simply come unplugged from the radio. Unfortunately this was not the case. In fact the antenna cable was in so tight that I had to use some needlenose to give the plug a gentle nudge. So my next thought was corrosion. I cleaned up the plug a bit, and it seemed to improve the reception in the driveway, but on my way to work this morning I couldn't get enough signal to bother keeping the radio on. While I had the dash apart, I also inspected what I could see of the antenna cable... There were no hard kinks or any signs of rubbing. The protective foam was still intact around it. The only thing I can think of is that when the radio is pushed back into the dash, it is bending the cable enough that it loses connectivity from the plug?
I live about 30 miles from Denver, and all the stations have their antennas sitting up on the side of the mountain. I practically have line-of-sight to their antennas during my entire drive, so I would think I could pick up a signal from here with a paperclip... So what's going on? Any suggestions on what else I can easily check? Would it be of any use to put a multimeter across the antenna plug, and if so what readings should I see? If I can determine from readings that the plug is the culprit, is there any place that can cheaply crimp a new plug on the wire (and by 'cheap' I mean less than the cost of buying my own pair of crimps)? If nothing else, I may just have to run to Radio Shack and pick up another antenna to test out.
I live about 30 miles from Denver, and all the stations have their antennas sitting up on the side of the mountain. I practically have line-of-sight to their antennas during my entire drive, so I would think I could pick up a signal from here with a paperclip... So what's going on? Any suggestions on what else I can easily check? Would it be of any use to put a multimeter across the antenna plug, and if so what readings should I see? If I can determine from readings that the plug is the culprit, is there any place that can cheaply crimp a new plug on the wire (and by 'cheap' I mean less than the cost of buying my own pair of crimps)? If nothing else, I may just have to run to Radio Shack and pick up another antenna to test out.