Poor Radio Reception

Hi everyone, I have a problem with the radio reception in our Rambler. 
The set works find out of the Dash but when I slot it in it looses its signal and gets interference even with the engine and ignition off.
I have replaced the Aerial and lead but still the same.

Anyone got any ideas?


AS Rambler

Hi   

A bit late with a reply but better late than never eh!

AS Rambler wrote: The set works find out of the Dash but when I slot it in it looses its signal and gets interference even with the engine and ignition off. I have replaced the Aerial and lead but still the same.

AS Rambler wrote:Anyone got any ideas?

Doesn’t look like it does it?    

A bit more info needed I think. At the risk of stating the obvious it has to be a problem with the aerial, the radio or the connections in between them. Several questions spring to mind though.

The first one would be has it been the same since you had the van?

How did you test the radio out of dash. If it springs to life as you pull it forward has to be an intermittent connection somewhere. If you’re absolutely certain the aerial is OK it could be inside the radio itself. It’s possible that there is an intermittent connection / dry joint that only shows up when you flex the case. I had something similar with a Philips / Pye radio (many years ago), the problem turned out to be that the edge of the PCB was earthed to the case by several soldered joint some of which had cracked.

If you can (or get someone else) to hold it in the faulty condition it’s worth wiggling the aerial lead and power connector to see if it makes any difference.

As for the aerial, is it the type with an integral cable and plug (probably is) and is there any extension lead? If it’s been like it since you had the van is there any possibility that somebody has used the wrong type of cable (e.g. TV coax)?

The last point is only valid if you used a different aerial / lead to test the radio when it was out of the dash of course.  

Good luck with the fault finding.

Brod.

Hi Brod - thanks for your post, having rechecked everything again I have found the problem! The aerial lead was not earthing properly where the aerial mounts on the wing. Cleaned the inside of the wing and reconnected the aerial perfect reception. Regards Peter (AS Rambler)