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Muckyman

Newbie with a radio query....

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Hi all,

Newbie here, hoping you can help.

I got a Gt86 at the weekend and all was well. Decided to wash it yesterday, and removed the bee sting aerial while doing so.

The radio no longer has any reception (the aerial was screwed back on obviously)  :-)

Any help / pointers / advice as to what could have gone wrong or how to fix it?

many thanks

Michael

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Check that no water got into the connector or wiring.

I know the facelift models have powered aerials, they might all have?  In which case, power to the aerial may have been lost, like a blown fuse.  That's usually behind the head unit.

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There’s a pcb in the aerial base I snapped a aftermarket one in it and tried to get it out luckily I found a new aerial dirt cheap and comes with a plastic bung to fit should you remove aerial for any reason

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Could it be that the aerial is not broken but it’s just crap? I’ve not actually investigated it yet, (will at the weekend), but I can receive my towns local FM station and AM stations - I can’t get any national FM stations at all and I always could in previous cars.

So, could it be faulty? If it was faulty would it not just receive nothing at all?

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The wiring to the antenna can act as an antenna, albeit a poor one. I was receiving only some standard TV channels at home until I found the end of the aerial cable in the loft with nothing on it.

Try refit your antenna again, and then do as advised above.

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so, I did some investigation at the weekend. As far as I can see, the antenna connections are OK, bot at the antenna and at the back of the head unit. Could be one of the joins in the cable length is broken though.

The car is going in for its recall on the 15th so I'll ask Toyota to look into this also.

Is the general view that radio reception is poor in these cars because the antenna is rubbish, or is it the head unit that's at fault?

ta

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7 minutes ago, Muckyman said:

so, I did some investigation at the weekend. As far as I can see, the antenna connections are OK, bot at the antenna and at the back of the head unit. Could be one of the joins in the cable length is broken though.

The car is going in for its recall on the 15th so I'll ask Toyota to look into this also.

Is the general view that radio reception is poor in these cars because the antenna is rubbish, or is it the head unit that's at fault?

ta

Sure it’s not water ingress after washing car

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23 minutes ago, nikndel said:

Sure it’s not water ingress after washing car

where?

I took the antenna off to wash it, as it says to in the owners manual so it must be designed to be OK to do so, and dried the screw thread hole as best as I could before refitting it.

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When I had to change my antenna base when I got a new one it came with a blanking plug for protection well mine did anyway just seems strange after washing car with hole open your radio gets no signal could be a coincidence 

EB094382-CCF7-4B9C-9D3C-4A552EC94D9A.jpeg

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It's very likely that water ingress went down the co-ax cable, causing a short for both the signal and the amplifier voltage.  You would have to carefully dismantle the aerial assembly and dry it all with a hairdryer or similar.

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to be honest, I'm not even sure if the radio reception was there before the wash. I only bought the car the day before and had been listening to music from USB. I may have listened to the radio but really can't remember.

So, general consensus is the following? 

Drop rear headliner and unbolt the antenna assembly. Dry it all out and refit. No guarantee, but worth a try?

ta

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If you're not sure it worked before, I'd drop the headlining (just do the 3 push clips) and disconnect the aerial base, remove the head unit and check for continuity with a multi meter. 

You could also check for a voltage on the wire providing power to the aerial. 

If the wire is good then you're probably looking at the aerial base and it's either toast or just needs drying 

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After trying a longer aerial with a small improvement, I have finally solved my radio reception issue - with a Pure Highway 200 DAB digital radio adapter.

Works perfectly and highly recommend for anyone having issues with radio reception.

 

7A321EBB-23D6-4933-8692-749711C1EF88.jpeg

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