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Mark 7 Ford Transit aerial issues?

Our motorhome radio is more than a bit crap. On FM the we get a very poor signal with the sound being hissy, crackly and sometimes breaking up. Frequent retuning generally make no difference.

Yesterday I drove 110 miles from west to east across Scotland and it was pretty much unlistenable the whole way. Today I returned (at the same time of day) and was amazed to have clear reception with excellent sound quality and no need to retune.

There was only one significant differences. Today it was raining (it was dry for the whole journey yesterday). Could the rain be in any way responsible for this improvement in function? Is it suggestive of a particular type of fault?

I would change the aerial if I could but it's a bit of a bastard on the Transit requiring destruction of the cowling around the base of the door mirror stem and drilling out security bolts.

Tim

Reply to
Tim+
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I had identical on my car. The lead connection at the aerial is probably rusty. You're going to have to bite the bullet or it might be easier to fit another aerial on the roof.

Another thought. You will probably find the rust/fault is at the aerial end of the cable so if you can get the aerial off you could splice the cable and just fit an aerial instead of the cable too.

Reply to
Dr Proctor

Alas, access to most of the cable isn't really a problem. Access to the aerial mount and where the cable attaches to it is a complete and utter arse of a job. As you say, may just need to bite the bullet though.

Tim

Reply to
Tim+

does the body obscure the aerial from a transmitter in one direction of travel, but has line of sight when returning the other way? I agree about rust where the aerial meets the body, but I haven't seen it for years.

Reply to
MrCheerful

Hmm, good point. The aerial is on the passenger side and I was travelling along the M8 which passes east/west north of the Black Hill transmitter. Maybe it's just that. Motorhomes can be tricky for aerial siting I believe. Combination of glass fibre bits an extra bodywork. You don't tend to see roof mounted ones on them.

Tim

Reply to
Tim+

My experience of FM radio in a car in Scotland is that over wide areas it is unusable. By contrast in flat East Anglia it is very good. The problem is the hills and mountains in Scotland - the radio signal just does not pass through them.

However, I have known car radios equipped with inadequate aerials - then even in East Anglia reception is poor in areas on the boundaries between the ranges of the larger transmiters (Wrotham and Tacolneston, for example). So when passing Cambridge on the A11 the radio struggled for a bit then re-tuned automatically.

DAB should be better, but in my experience is actually worse (which I believe is a design failing - too many programs on one carrier, so the channels have insufficient noise immunity).

Reply to
Graham J

Most likely water in the co-ax cable..

Yep..

Local TX at Madingley but rather low power 125 watts per plane on the national channels

No not that just higher frequencies and a tad more demanding proprogation wise here and there;!.

Did you hear the local Cambridge MUX we have on a trial licence at the moment that does get out very well for what it is, barely a 100 watts but down on 194 MHz...

Reply to
tony sayer

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