Radio reception poor

Birchall

Dick Chown Award 2016
I am used to the fact that the A2 radio reception is not great, but this time it was bad enough to make me investigate mine.
I had noticed in the past that the diversity unit (the one where the wires are behind that little oblong (normally) empty rectangular box in the battery compartment) played a part in this and on previous A2s I have “jiggled” the wires (technical term!) on that unit and it actually did make an improvement. But not this time.
I also noticed that the battery compartment was showing signs of being flooded in the past (but ok now) so I contacted A2Steve for a replacement (thank you Steve).
I checked the list of stations and then swapped the diversity unit over and boy what a difference, I now have a long list of stations (some that I have never even heard of before).

So if you are suffering the same issue it could be worth a try. (mine was an RNSE head unit, but it also applies to the standard A2 head units)

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this is where it is located in the battery box you can see the connections into it. To release each plug you need to lever off (carefully) the blue tabs (upward away from the box, I used a thin screwdriver but I am sure that someone will correct me on that process). Once it is unplugged you will see the two catches on the right of the unit (they are very tight but they do allow your to ease them back enough

Worth a try, these units (secondhand) should be at a reasonable cost because they are rarely replaced and should be readily available. I am sure that Steve has a few
Steve B
 
Afternoon Steve,

I’m glad you got this resolved. A replacement Diversity Unit usually does the trick. Hope you enjoy all the new stations.

Kind regards,

Tom
 
Hi Steve,

was the problem on all bands and channels, or specific ones? My BHC car has horrible interference on AM (specifically BBC Radio 5) when the a/c is engaged (a loud pinging/beeping noise constantly that disappears when you press Econ and returns when you re-engage a/c), with worse interference when you are near to power lines. Real shame as I listen to the football a lot and sometimes it is almost un-listenable. FM on the other hand is fine. Neither our AUA or AMF cars have this problem. All have Concert II or Chorus II. Obviously if yours was all channels / FM as well then my problem is probably something else, but interested to compare notes in case it is my diversity unit.

cheers, Robin
 
I had poor reception on FM and AM. The interference from things like the air con is often a symptom of an aerial / diversity issue. The reason being that a good reception normally blocks these electrical disturbances.
No harm in replacing the diversity unit, not a big job and is low cost. It really could be causing your issues.

Steve B
 
The diversity thingy amplifies the signal received by the aerials, so that signal that travels through the car, to the radio is quite strong, and so any interference, from aircon etc, is at a low level compared to to the radio signal, so has little or no effect on the radio output (like what you hear). If the diversity thingy is duff, the radio signal is not amplified, so the interference is a strong signal, so what you hear is mostly interference. If the diversity is duff, both AM and FM will be poor, I'd think. So, if you're problem is only AM, might be worth borrowing a radio from somewhere, to see if the radio is at fault.
Mac.
 
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