Alpine Radio...can only get one Radio Station...!

Hi all,
Bit of an odd one this.
I have an Alpine CDE123R RDS Radio/CD player fitted to my A610 I chose this as the Amber illumination on the unit matched the dashboard lighting...anoraky I know! The unit is about 3 years old and my problem is I can only get one local radio station on it. The radio unit seemed to pick up many more stations when I lived in Staffordshire than now in Hampshire.
I have tried long range searches and short range searches but can only get the one station and the unit has a squillion presets of which I can only use one!
I'm just wondering if the unit is on its way out, although its not had a lot of use or whether its something else. The RDS was brilliant for getting travel announcements...handy on the way to the Channel Tunnel etc.

Has anyone else had this problem with their car radio and if so does anyone know of a solution?
Any advice welcome.

Cheers, Barry.

[mettersl]

I don't have this radio, but I have the same problem in my 610, I can only receive one station...and that's only in London, not where I live.
I can see radio aerial damage at the bottom, it looks like its been glued back on but haven't investigated further as yet. You can unbolt it from inside (behind the interior light, turn off the power first as there is live 12v floating around and you may blow a fuse if you don't), you need to make sure that the earth side is properly connected to cha aerial earth (and maybe the body frame too).
As my headlining has had it, so I'm going to foil line the roof and connect that to earth too to try and improve the signal...a bit drastic if your headlining is OK.I have also found a similar looking aerial that does DAB too, so was planning a head unit change to add DAB too with this look alike aerial.
I'm sure that John C will be able to add some extra advice too.

Hi Lee,
Thanks for the information. I'll take the interior light out as you suggest and check the connections. I'll let you know how I get on.

Cheers, Barry.

p.s. Nice avatar photo of your A610 from the Macon trip.

I don't have this radio, but I have the same problem in my 610, I can only receive one station...and that's only in London, not where I live.

As in both these cases, I would get hold of a known good car aerial and having disconnected the OE one, plug in the known good one and check if your radio signal is any better. You don't have to earth the aerial base for this check as if you have an aerial fault, the radio should burst into life with a good aerial. When I am overhauling the later GTA OE radio cassette's, I just use a one meter length of wire with an car aerial plug on the end, and I can set up all the programs without any problem.

I can see radio aerial damage at the bottom, it looks like its been glued back on but haven't investigated further as yet.

I certainly would be investigating that before doing anything else ........ just try the known good one trick.

As my headlining has had it, so I'm going to foil line the roof and connect that to earth too to try and improve the signal.

I really wonder if you are going to achieve anything by lining the roof with tin foil ...... When I was invited to the Dieppe prior to buying my Alp, I was able to watch an outer door panel being made. The outer part of the mould was horizontal an the first thing that happened was a quantity of fibre glass resin was poured into the mould, then a few layers of fibre glass matting followed by what I can only describe as a layer of flexible "stainless steel chain mail", this was followed by more layers of fibre glass matting. Then the other half of the mould was lowered into the main mould and put under pressure where the excess resin was squeezed out of the mould joint. I was given to understand that this was part reinforcing, and part interference suppression. I have no doubt that the roof panel has something similar. Those of you that have replaced the roof lining themselves, and have cleaned all the old adhesive off the roof, will have noticed that the roof is white, and there appears to be a wires just under the surface in a set pattern.
This I believe is the screening in the roof.
A couple of other "give away's" is that if there were no screening in the roof, I cannot see how you would be able to hear any MW / LW programs without them being swamped by ignition interference, you will notice that the removable engine cover has detachable earth straps ..... which begs the question ... why just there ? If the roof was not screened and earthed, and you were just relying on the engine cover, I do not believe the interference could not just bypass the cover and pass straight up to the areiai.
The other "give away", with the radio on, just lay the aerial down on the roof and listen to the signal disappear, due to the unwanted extra capacity (micro farads) being applied to the aerial input circuitry. ....... If the roof were not earthed, you would notice no difference in signal level.
A bit of a long sermon I am afraid, but I hope some might find it interesting,
John

[mettersl]

Thanks, John,
I have a couple of other aerials around, I'll try that...and the information about the metal in the roof is interesting too. I have to do the headlining anyway so I'll have a look when it's out. The GTA has a new headliner in it...so that can stay...with its foil underlay...but I'll earth that any way to avoid any issues.

I'm likely to go DAB anyway as I don't have the original radio for the 610, but getting everything working is always a goal of mine if I can, and FM is always useful.
Lee

Hi again ,
Thanks Lee and Johnc for your input into this.
Yesterday I removed the interior light and the roof trim to access the aerial base and as you can see from the photo it has quite a substantial earth strap on it that’s bolted onto the metal tubular …I guess sort of roll cage , nonetheless I unbolted this and made sure all the connections were good including where the aerial lead clips into the aerial base itself.

If you look closely at the photo you can see the embedded metal mesh that johnc mentioned was incorporated into the panels. I had a new roof lining fitted some years ago by a car trimming company. When the old roof lining was removed I remembered then seeing this mesh incorporated across the whole of the roof panel but didn't at that time realise what it was.

20170722_174340.jpg

So, the next stage was to remove the Radio/CD player to check the rear aerial connector. The current Alpine unit has a short lead on it and the car aerial lead has a right angled connector on it, I guess for ease of fitting to the original Pioneer Radio/Cassette player.

There is very little room at the back of the radio as its full of wiring plus the adaptors to make the steering column remote to work and it was here that I think the problem lies. When I took it apart I found that the inner cable at the car aerial end connector was loose.

When the unit was fitted (by Halfords in Stafford) I recall the guy having great difficulty in getting the unit to click into place so I guess it was forced in. Looking at the aerial lead it was badly bent so I guess over a period of time the strain on this connector broke the solder…hence no radio stations.

20170722_174340.jpg

That said I have just fitted a new aerial end connector…and now have 2 local radio stations instead of one but no Radio 1/2/3/or 4 or any other stations so I'm ready to give up. Maybe there is a break or damage to the aerial cable somewhere else but I have nothing I can check this with so a good 6 hours piddiling around and nothing to show for it! Anyone know a good car ICE guy all I have locally is Halfords in Andover…!

Cheers, Barry.

P.s. Interestingly when I removed the long plastic roof panel trim I saw written on the back of it: 1464 JK.R. 06.01.92 so I'm guessing this was the production number and the guys initials who made this on behalf of Alpine. The date ties in as my car was registered in April 1993.

If you look closely at the photo you can see the embedded metal mesh

Hi Barry,
Thank you for posting that pic of the aerial base showing the "chain mail" mesh and the earth strap connecting it to the chassis ...... I have never had to delve that deep to the aerial base, so I did not know that it existed.

When the unit was fitted (by Halfords in Stafford) I recall the guy having great difficulty in getting the unit to click into place so I guess it was forced in. Looking at the aerial lead it was badly bent so I guess over a period of time the strain on this connector broke the solder…

If the aerial plug has been strained and damaged by forcing the set to click into position, it might be worth opening up the set and inspecting the solder joints where the aerial socket is soldered to the printed circuit board. These may be cracked.
Thanks again for the Pic's.

[BIG_MVS]

I had my roof lining replaced recently and the radio still works.

This may help with replacement or testing purposes:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/232413147612? ... 1555.l2649

[stephendell]

JK.R is short for "joker" who they got to assemble all the right hand drive cars lol

Hi all,
Thanks for all of the helpful advice I've received on this matter but sadly none of it helped me to tune into any radio stations other than two very local stations...that I could tune into even with the aerial unplugged!

Yesterday I took my car to a local car Hi Fi place near Winchester for them to check it out. On the back of the Alpine unit there is a short aerial lead that the car aerial lead plugs into and after a bit of testing they found that it was this short lead that was faulty. Luckily they were able to remove this lead from the unit and change it and hey presto I can now get loads of radio stations again!
So problem sorted at last, I'm a happy man...for now...!

Cheers, Barry.