Thread: What happened to your Discovery 2 today?

Attachment 144356

I bought a GME 1 metre AM/FM antenna and fitted it to the RH side of the car as shown, using a Z bracket . The cable was far too long so I cut it to the correct length and bought another end at Jaycar. I have a swivel mount as my garage is too low to have it vertical, but it still kicks arse.

At The Central Coast the Sydney based AM reception is very poor with the stock antenna in the glass. I suspect there is also something wrong with my inline amplifier as I would get terrible beat interference every second , and could hear the injectors, indicators, wipers etc . I can still faintly hear the indicators but all else is quiet.
Anyway it is great now. There is no car based interference and while there is still some local interference at bad spots , it is much much better.
Regards Philip A

Yep, they make a big difference, i have the 1.5m when they where made by Mobileone but find it's just a bit too long and bends in the wind to much. Did the same to the Patrol, inglass antenna's suck.

Normal wheel nuts have nothing, just the smooth cap finisher

I think Mario has it the wrong way around.
You can use spare wheel nuts on the wheels but not wheel nuts on the spare.

The wheel nuts do not have the thread cut all the way up, whereas the spare wheels nuts do.

I have used a wheel nut on the spare by adding a thick washer from an old RRC wheel nut I had lying around.
Not that it's a burning issue as spare nuts are a lot rarer than wheel nuts.

Regards Philip A

Originally Posted by PhilipA

Attachment 144356

I bought a GME 1 metre AM/FM antenna and fitted it to the RH side of the car as shown, using a Z bracket . The cable was far too long so I cut it to the correct length and bought another end at Jaycar. I have a swivel mount as my garage is too low to have it vertical, but it still kicks arse.

At The Central Coast the Sydney based AM reception is very poor with the stock antenna in the glass. I suspect there is also something wrong with my inline amplifier as I would get terrible beat interference every second , and could hear the injectors, indicators, wipers etc . I can still faintly hear the indicators but all else is quiet.
Anyway it is great now. There is no car based interference and while there is still some local interference at bad spots , it is much much better.
Regards Philip A

Nice work Philip!
I was planning to install a splitter off the UHF CB antenna, when I eventually install one.
I haven't look under the dash is the antenna cable a standard radio plug?

My AM reception is terrible even in town, which I think is mainly due to missing a condenser on the alternator.

I haven't look under the dash is the antenna cable a standard radio plug?

Yes the stock radio/Cd has a normal radio antenna plug.
I have a Pioneer cd/USB/Bluetooth and it has the same plug.
The antenna comes with about 3 metres of cable so you will probably have to cut it off the correct length , then solder on a plug from Jaycar or wherever.
Regards Philip A

Originally Posted by DiscoDiscoMan

My AM reception is terrible even in town, which I think is mainly due to missing a condenser on the alternator.

Tell us more about the "missing condensor" - I'm in the same boat for AM reception despite already trying both 1 and 1.5m external aerials and had basically given up.

Tell us more about the "missing condensor" - I'm in the same boat for AM reception despite already trying both 1 and 1.5m external aerials and had basically given up.

Most if not all alternators have a radio suppression condenser attached to stop alternator whine in the radio. The whine is high pitched and quite distinctive and not related to the noises from CANBUS ( beat at about 2 per second), injectors (hash at engine speed) , indicators (tick tick), wipers (whir whir) etc.

It is important that the antenna cable has a good ground for the sheath at both ends so make sure the spikes on the bottom of the antenna have a direct contact to earth.
Of course the Signal to noise ratio is important. In very weak signal areas you will inevitably get more noise from the car.
I am amazed at the difference to mine. I thought that my Pioneer AM stage had died due to the extreme amount of noise from the stock antenna, but it's all gone and I only hear local noise now from solar installations, and electric transformers etc. FM is unaffected by noise as that's the way it works.
I somehow think that the inline amplifier has died in my car, but I couldn't be bothered pulling out the headlining to replace it. My window antenna is relatively new also as a couple of years ago a bloke with a whipper snipper broke mine ( and luckily took responsibility and paid the $490 replacement)
You can buy capacitors to place in the power wire , but in my car anyway it does not seem to be needed.
In a past life I was ICE manager for Sanyo Guthrie and used to test our radios against the competition for such things.
Regards Philip A

PhilipA has done a better job than I could have.
I also notice the AM interference speed up and down with the engine rpm’s hence pointing me to the alternator and potential lack of suppressor condenser.
It’s a $3 part from Jaycar but about an hours plus work to get in fit and it on.... with two contact points.... hence it’s been sitting in my parts box for 12 months.
Wow Sanyo. Kudos for old school analogue.
Can you believe that they made TVs in Wodonga into the mid 80’s!