Thread: DAB Radio Aerial on Older Cars

I have a DAB radio in the house but the programmes seem to be duplicates of the FM ones.

When I first got it, the programmes were different. Now the DAB is never used as we don’t listen to radio at home. (I don’t listen to radio in the car, either. I can’t stand commercials and I don’t like multiple or young announcers so that rules out most of the ABC as well. I have 32GB memory card loaded with thousands of tunes in the car.)

The ally add-on earth tab seems a fair bet. Just make sure that the rivets get a good grip, therefore a good connection, to the pillar.

I'm like Ron, in that I don't listen to commericals, nor to ABC much, any more.
Sometimes I may listen to the final broadcast of the footy for a bit, till the commercials get annoying enough to kill that again!

But I found the window sticker aerials totally useless, and wouldn't waste my time with one again.

I ended up with a very large aerial from MobileOne, but we're talking D1.
The difference wasn't even night and day .. much greater than that.
I used to work in western suburbs and had to use our ring road to get there, and there is one section that passes under some overhead HT power lines, where the glass aerial would cut out for a good few sec due to trans mission loss. AM/FM would give a few sec of interference(worse than total loss I reckon) .. the large mobile one aerial used to give just a fraction of a sec loss, and half sec dip out then back again.

I've had(intermittent) but still viable transmission out close to Ballarat area ... approx 100klm ... ish with the MobileOne antenna.
I'm not recommending you fit a MobileOne antenna to the Jag .. would look totally out of place, but there are other options out there.
Depends on how much performance you want and how easy install you want that too.

Google DAB aerial and you'll find quite a few alternatives.

Soundlabs have two external options that would suit.

The traditional extending aerial on old cars works well with DAB. All you need is a signal splitter like this:
PRESTIGECOM |Signal Master AM/FM/DAB 12V Band Splitter 10db Gain

No need for additional aerials. This is what I have done on my Defender.

Cheers,
Jon

I second that the sticky things are useless. I bought a higher gain window unit that does not need an earth strap, ie it is a dipole antenna internally, but I mounted it above the rear view mirror to minimize the visual impact. Turns out that DAB signals are vertically polarized (at least down here) so the incorrect polarization gives me a 30dB penalty and reception is still crap. Ah well, why use it anyway

Cheers,
-P

Thanks for all the comments - much appreciated.

I went with the stick on aerial that came with the car radio. I appreciate the points made about these and the suggestion to use another aerial or to use a splitter.

Not too worried as I knew little about DAB. I noted Rons point that most DAB stations are just retransmitted FM stations and certainly here in Canberra that is the case. The stick on aerial picks up the local stations OK but realistically if DAB is the same as FM I will just stay with FM. In a moving car, particularly with lots of wind noise as my Jag has, the difference in sound quality will not be all that noticeable.

The radio is in and works fine, installation was a pain as it sits in the heater box and it also has SW1 and SW2 bands - not sure what exciting things I will find there and I will check once the radio is set up.

Thanks for the pointers.

Garry

Originally Posted by 101RRS

..... I noted Rons point that most DAB stations are just retransmitted FM stations and certainly here in Canberra that is the case......

One of the major attractions to DAB surely must be the access to Coles Radio!

You have plenty of time to sort that aerial out mate Not sure when oz plans to cut of analogue transmissions but even here in europe, where we tend to "rush" headlong into these things only norway has switched off FM by now. Many countries to follow I guess within 10 years though. In my home country all AM has ceased for years and the towers that once transmitted the more popular services have been demolished since nobody believed they would ever be used again. There is only the BBC left on long wave (radio 4) that I can pick up across the north sea which is fun. It was already announced years ago that they bought the last available tubes for the transmitter and once they run out, they will not build a new transmitter but just shut radio4 LW down. Most other LW transmitters in europe have already vanished. So, I wonder what your radio might pick up and if and LW/MW/SW is still used over there.

In terms of quality, I am sure it will be difficult to hear in the (clarkson impersonation) Juaaaaaaaaaaaag but dab+ does use the HE-AAC codec so in theory you could get better sound quality. Depends on what bitrate they have chosen to use

I can't say that I am a fan of these switchovers since there are many -MANY- radio's just about everywhere, in the shed, on the boat, in the kitchen etc etc that will all become e-waste instantly. The excuse is also that you can fit a lot more stations in a lot less bandwidth. and in theory that would use a lot less power. The same goes for DVB. Funny thing is though, FM needs nothing more than a class C amp which is relatively efficient compared to the class A you need for the linearity of a DAB/DVB signal. I really wonder if we have achieved any real power usage gains. Pardon my rant

Cheers,
-P