Poor radio reception when heated screen on??

nod

Member
Our FSI has a fault where the radio reception FM gets extremely poor when the rear screen demister is turned on. The reception is ok once the heating element is turned off. Any one else had this and fixed it? Many thanks.
 
Check for broken wires as the cables pass from the car to the tailgate, arcing causing interference.
 
Hi,

this is probably and earth fault, to test it connect a very thick wire like mains cable between the battery Earth and touch a known Earth point on the tailgate, turn your rear heater on/off and check if reception improves. Don't put your finger on the bare wires as this may lead to a false result as you will become the aerial and increase the signal inadvertently.

Alternatively do what I did, remove your radio/CD and connect an Earth lead to the body of said device and then connect it to the bolt that fixes the grab bar on the dash as this is a good Earth connection to see if it helps reception, this also get's rid of the dreaded rear speaker buzz/clicking.

I've also done a big wire Earth mod from the battery to the rear body of the car, my FM reception has increased greatly, I'm intending to run a new thicker Earth lead to the hatch next to the aerial amps in the hatch when I get some time to do it.

Hope this helps you.
Cheers

Doug
 
Mine does this too. I've adopted a bit of a lazy fix - switch to a CD whilst the back screen is demisting. I tend to find that Radio 2 isn't too bad either
 
I have been having very poor FM radio reception (having to reselect the radio station etc) over the past 6-12 months and my DAB reception was terrible too, even with a roof mounted DAB whip antenna. So at the weekend I ran a new earth cable from the point in the boot lid to the rear light cluster mount bolt and that seems to have sorted the FM reception and returned my DAB radio to a functional condition. I was getting rather frustrated with the loss of DAB and could not understand why the boot earth would cause such an issue.
 
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As previous post, possible broken wire in the tailgate to body area beside the hinges. By supplying a new earth directly from the rear lights the circuit is again complete. Remember the standard aerial is part of the rear heated screen one terminal going to earth. If the original earth is or has failed then poor radio reception and or no heated rear window.
 
I undertsand that, but the DAB antenna is a completely self contained antenna with its own ground. So just a bit confusing.
 
Yes but was the DAB antenna earthed through the body or a separate earth wire? Aluminium not as good as steel for earths.
 
I've been through a whole process of eliminating RFI and EMI to improve DAB reception.

USB power cigar lighter plugs are generally poor unless you get a good quality one - and Dashcam was very EMI poor so moved my DAB aerial from front to back quarter.

I've now manaegd to install mutiple USB sockets, dashcam and DAB radio with more than ok reception but it did take a lot of work...including very careful routing of USB cables to ensure separation from the fusebox.
 
I have a charger for my phone which is USB to wireless, but the reception has been terrible long before that was fitted and its far away from the DAB module. But I understand about RFI. I fitted a media player to an A8 D3 once and it killed the FM reception.
 
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