Adding autodab to Rnse

[Stol1975]

After much internal debate I eventually plucked up the courage to order an rnse off eBay and I guess I was lucky as its in perfect condition.
I managed to code it all in correctly with my new vcds cable and was so impressed with the sat nav, sound quality, sd card options and the overall OEM look but then I realised I was badly struggling for fm/am signal. I researched what to do and took advice from members on here but I really never wanted to stump up for a fix that could cost me hundreds. It was really getting to me that I never had radio and then I stumbled on a thread on here talking about fitting dab radioto rnse from these guys

http://www.autodab.com/

I managed to source one for £130 again through a member on here. The fitting went well, I had it all setup and working on my drive, I just had to stick the antenna to the wind screen even though I never liked the look of it. I then went for a drive around and on the move there was no signal!!!
I was thinking I had started throwing good money after bad here just to get my daily bbc five live fix.
So back to the drawing board. I decided to get a dab magnetic roof mount antenna from halfords. I had to get a sma to smb antenna connection from eBay first so it would fit. I then fitted in place of the sticky screen one.
Well it's all sorted now and if you can put with a small antenna behind the shark fin it's you get perfect reception with no drop out at all apart from one dead spot on the m40 so far.

Sorry for the ramble but I wanted to pass on cause I'm so pleased I have digital radio now and I only did it with your advice and links. It's a cheaper fix than the fm one and you have more radio stations to choose from.
Thanks guys especially those who PM'd from the beginning.

Steve

 

[hades-]

im glad you posted this i was just gona order 1
but if the antenna is no good then ill forget it
i didnt like the look of it on the screen but would have lived with it
and i defo dont wana be adding to the body of the car.

 

[Stol1975]

If you have fm now I can see why but I wanted a cheaper fix that I could do myself.

 

[Cruiser89]

Hey dude...

Glad you got it fixed but remember the reason you were getting no signal was due to you not sticking the ground bit to your chassis, like it was mentioned on the thread below. The antenna sticks to the windscreen and then has a special grounding stick on bit... We have fitted a lot of these kits with no problems.

http://www.audi-sport.net/vb/new-products/166119-fancy-digital-radio-dab-your-audi.html

Now you have it working, I'm sure you will agree it is pretty good!

I have one in my car using the normal windscreen antenna and I very rarely get a drop out.

 

[hades-]

Hey dude...

Glad you got it fixed but remember the reason you were getting no signal was due to you not sticking the ground bit to your chassis, like it was mentioned on the thread below. The antenna sticks to the windscreen and then has a special grounding stick on bit... We have fitted a lot of these kits with no problems.

http://www.audi-sport.net/vb/new-products/166119-fancy-digital-radio-dab-your-audi.html

Now you have it working, I'm sure you will agree it is pretty good!

I have one in my car using the normal windscreen antenna and I very rarely get a drop out.

thanks for that
first post didnt mention not fitting it right.

 

[Stol1975]

I spoke to dynamic sound who advised a fix that never worked. Then I removed it and re-attached the earth to the pillar which still didn't resolve the situation. It could of been me but I actually prefer the antenna on the roof to the windscreen anyway. I would fully recommend the dab but even on the promotional YouTube clip the chap in it doesn't get a signal.

 

[Cruiser89]

I spoke to dynamic sound who advised a fix that never worked. Then I removed it and re-attached the earth to the pillar which still didn't resolve the situation. It could of been me but I actually prefer the antenna on the roof to the windscreen anyway. I would fully recommend the dab but even on the promotional YouTube clip the chap in it doesn't get a signal.

Out of interest, what did they suggest? My guess is that when you removed the antenna to try and re-stick it got damaged.

That video was made by us and the car was in a bad area at the time. Even when AutoDAB shows poor signal, you still don't get major dropouts. It's just a caution to let you know. Remember though, BBC and national ensembles pump a lot more power into their signals than local ensembles.

Glad you got a resolve though bud!

 

[Stol1975]

They suggested a metal connection to bridge the gap. I stripped down an old aerial and braided some copper wiring together. It did improve but not enough. I should of said in the original post that I had an issue but god it was long enough post already lol. Didn't mean to besmirch the product and I hope people can see I think it's great. I wanted to let anyone who has lost fm signal after fitting rnse there is an even better alternative in dab.

 

[Sidhu88]

I've installed the autodab unit into an e93 bimmer with no issues whatsoever. Surprised to hear uve had issues with ur antenna. I've installed a hell of a lot of DAB units over the last year and easily prefer the internal antenna over the external, mainly because of cleanliness. Looks alot better than having another aerial on the outside. I was gonna mention checking over the the mounting of the metal strip, but if uve already done this and its no better then im unsure as to why uve had issues. Did u try a full rescan afterwards? another trick i found is to manual search for one station then fully rescan. With some of the dab stereos i've installed this was necessary to get it working. It could (but shouldn't) be a defective internal antenna supplied with it. But if ur happy with the one on the outside then so be it.

 

[Final 3Green Land]

Some of the issues with the signal is the heated windscreens fitted to some cars, (and some heated rear windows) which do a very good job of blocking the digital signals.

I found fitting the stick on aerials to the rear side windows, not the opening ones, solved the problem. The only thing is you need a 5M extension lead to allow the DAB aerial wiring to reach the unit.