New 5dr MY99. I switched head units for a Sony CD760 and everything seemed fine. Radio reception in particular was clear as a bell on all stations. RDS was picking up even more distant stations that it did when the Sony was in my 106GTi with its tiny "Sports" aerial.

Last week I lost some stations. I can now only receive Virgin, Radio 2 and two Kent locals (KFM & Invicta). As you might imagine, this is driving me crazy, since I'm normally a Radio 4 kind of person. (incidentally, has anyone else noticed that the "all music hour" is actually "all advert hour" on these commercial stations? They seem to be annoyed when they have to play a record)

I pulled the head unit out to check the antenna lead was correctly plugged in. It was.

The quality of sound on the listenable stations is reasonable, and is to some extent dependent on how far the aerial is up.

My suspicion is a dodgy, though not broken connection. What I want to know, before I start removing trim left right and centre, is where does the antenna lead go, from aerial to head unit? And does anyone else have any different ideas about the problem.

Thanks,

Rob.

Does anybody use another aerial instead of the pull-up aerial that is standard ?

Not wishing to be overly smug but if you buy an import you get a proper electric telescopic aerial as standard.

Buy all means be smug, but just tell me where the aerial is on WRX.. :-)

Better still anybody got any pictures showing where this is.

Cheers

Aerial on my WRX STi is on the nearside rear wing. Pictures at:

http://www.free2you.co.uk/home/preeya/sube.html

Have a look at "side view". You can see clearly where they put the aerial.

[This message has been edited by abetts (edited 28-03-99).]

Must only be the later imports that have electric aerials. I have an M Reg WRX and it's got the standard aerial on the A-pilar.

Mine has as well. MY93 WRX.

My Electric Arial is on the nearside rear
wing WRX STI Ver II MY95

Dunno if it's any help, but a guy at my work has a S-reg Forester Turbo, and he had problems with his radio. In the end, he went back to the dealer, and they diagnosed a problem with the aerial - replaced the whole thing, although took a few weeks, as parts had to be ordered from Japan.

I'm just about to take delivery of MY99. I've also purchased a Nokia car kit and didn't want two aerials fitted to the car.

Lets face it, the aerial is't exactly its best feature. So I've purchased a Tri-Band aerial for £60. Its glass mounted and looks just like the one fitted to the WRC model.

It also lets me use the aerial for radio AND my car phone kit. If anyone wants any info let me know

Rob,
Take the car back to the dealer and ask them to sort it under warranty. It may be worth putting the original head unit back in just to check it is not the new Sony head unit causing the problem.
If the dealer gives you grief re. fitting the Sony unit, the warranty document specifies that fitting parts of equal or better quality than the OEM parts is OK.
Bearing in mind the questionable quality of the original head unit, I doubt this should cause a problem.
IanF

To whoever suggested that I use a metal coat hanger to fix it - thanks!

It had been suggested that I remove the aerial lead from the back of the head unit and insert a metal coat hangar in its stead.

That didn't help.

But whilst doing this, I noticed the recessed "reset" button, so I inserted the coat hangar there, and bingo, silky smooth radio reception has been restored to Rob's silky smooth scooby.

Ta,

Rob. (the happy hatchbacker, enjoying wicked thumpin toons once more. Well, Radio 4 anyway)