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Car radio reception help +

J

JH_Radio

Hi there.
I posted on this forum before about this, but for those who haven't seen, I'll explain again.
I'm blind and I like to aircheck. my parents agreed to put a radio in the back so i could do this on trips when we got a new car. Last year they got a Lexis RX-350. I've had a box mounted in the back of the car for airchecking. The radio is only for me, so it isn't hooked up to speakers of any kind. There's one output running from an EQ (as i have a hearing impairment so use that for listening), and a second output running off the radio itself ( that I have running to a sony boombox with cassette recorder)
At first, I just put a Pioneer radio in with an amplified antenna mounted inside the box. That didn't work out. First the radio was pretty complicated I thought to use and second the reception sucked. so knowing that I should use the external antenna somehow and wanting a different radio, i did a search online for radio's with CD and cassette (knowing my EQ has a line-in for any other audio device that I'd want to connect.)
The radio used is a Sanyo fxcd-550. I have it set up that the stock antenna is split so that the front and back radios are powered by the factory antenna. This way i can do my airchecks or listen to whatever while my parents listen to whatever (Usually satelite, but have been known to turn on WIP-FM)
the Sanyo works much better than any boombox but the radio likes to jump to mono pretty easily. Is the radio a piece of crap for FM and I need to put a different one in the box, or will I need to drill holes in the Lexis runnign an antenna from the rooph to the back of the car and into the box? I do a trip from PA to FL and travel down I95 twice a year (FL in winter, PA in summer) That has been my real test of this S Sanyo radio. here in The Villages, stations that I think could get stereo (but dont) include WWKA 92.3, WDUV (105.5).
I remember a year or so there being this huge discussion about reception and car radio's, but can't find the link. If i had to pick between just a radio, or a radio such as my current one, i'd go for the radio. after all, to me it is the radio that is most important. While we could dril holes in the Lexis, my audio guy was like if we hook it up to the stock antenna, you wont have to have holes in your car, and when you get a new car in a few years or whatever, the box will be easy to take out and install to the next one. I mean, if you dril holes in a new car and you go to sel it or trade it in, you couldn't just remove a roophtop antenna. right? Of corse my other thoughts are that all radios get stations with a 2 or weaker rateing on radio-locator in mono, and i simply would never notice it before. I know that car radios tend to blend from stereo to mono. That is my only gripe is the stereo to mono blend, and it doesn't take much for this radio to blend to mono either . I'm willing to get a third radio (selling my current radio) or put an antenna on my rooph and stick with the current radio. i'd like to get it right this time around. It'd be nice if I could have a car radio with reception simular to a Yamaha T-85 with modded filters, but I can keep dreaming, I think.

Please help?
Thanks!
 
Any splitter will cause some signal loss, and if the car doesn't have a real whip antenna, it will will be much more
likely for a signal to blend to mono.

The radio you have now will probably do much better if it is connected to a whip antenna.
If you can find a whip antenna that can be retracted, and be mounted in a fender, you'll probably be satisfied.
It is not necessary to have a power antenna. There are retractable manual antennas that are much cheaper.
I put one on my wife's car and both AM and FM reception are many times improved over the windshield antenna.
If it can be mounted at the rear fender of the vehicle, there would be less noise pickup from the car's electronics
and ignition. It might be quite easy to install from the trunk area and then feed the coax just to your radio.

If installed professionally, this should not detract from resale value of the car, and it could feed your
radio separately now, then at the time of resale, it could be connected to the car's radio.
To some buyers, it would make the car MORE desirable.
It would help the blending to mono, for sure.
 
When I was an active ham on 2 metres I had a magnetic mount antenna for my portable. Perhaps something like this could be fashioned for the FM band for the radio? There would be no holes to drill, although the magnetic mount can create some paint issues if it sits in one spot for too long without proper care.

Drilling a hole in a roof is really not an ideal situation for resale considering the luxury-level of car we're talking about. If it were a Crown Vic no one would care, but Lexus buyers tend to be pretty picky people in my experience.

I'm certain the Lexus has an amplified stub antenna or one embedded somewhere. If it's like the amplified antenna in my car, it should be of sufficient quality for DXing and airchecking unless the amplifier has quit, which in a Lexus is unlikely. You'd notice degraded reception on the car's radio as well as the Sanyo. I think the Sanyo is just not very sensitive. Every aftermarket radio (and most OEM radios) I've tinkered with over the last 5 years have been VERY aggressive in blending to mono, so I'm not sure you could find one that holds stereo for very long. Car stereos seem to be geared for minimizing noise and interference, not stereo separation.

If you could get your hands on a used Delco radio from a GMC or Chevrolet truck or car, you might find one that doesn't blend to mono at all. We had GM products for work trucks at a place I used to work and while they were very noisy radios (no blending means you hear all the choppiness and dropouts on FM) they were stellar receivers, pulling in stations other car radios had trouble decoding.

Whatever you do, John, good luck and happy listening!
 
Zach said:
If you could get your hands on a used Delco radio from a GMC or Chevrolet truck or car, you might find one that doesn't blend to mono at all. We had GM products for work trucks at a place I used to work and while they were very noisy radios (no blending means you hear all the choppiness and dropouts on FM) they were stellar receivers, pulling in stations other car radios had trouble decoding.!
Click to expand...

And they also receive AM stereo if you can get the right model. They were common in the late 80s, early 90s.
 
From Zach "If you could get your hands on a used Delco radio from a GMC or Chevrolet truck or car, you might find one that doesn't blend to mono at all."

Better go back at least 25 years on this one, that's about when Motorola started producing FM stereo chipsets with the blend-to-mono feature.
 
I'll tell you now, no Delco from the 80s is going to have RCA outputs.
Hell I've never seen a car radio with RCA out.

Mag mounts are very doable! you may have to custom order the whip, since most are cut for 150 mhz at the lowest.
 
well I dont think i'm gonna go with a delco, only cause of no RCA outputs.
What current aftermarkit car radio's are good?
I love the Chryslor RAZ radio Infinity with CD and Cassette featuring Am Stereo. that radio blended to mono, but it took a lot for it to do so.
I was listening to the Pioneer up front the other day in the Lexus, and the stock radio seems much better at holding stereo than the Sanyo I have in back. I can say the same for a Kia soul 2011. I believe they also use Infinity radios. I did a web search and it doesn't appear that Infinity makes aftermarkit car radios, instead focusing on speakers. Maybe it isn't e the radio so much, but rather the antenna and the signal splitting.
I think the first thing I'm gonna try is putting an external antenna on the car. We'd put the antenna on the rooph. There's no fender to put a 38-inch wip onto.
What antenna would you suggest for the rooph?
If that doesn't work I'll try a third radio, but what should i choose? RCA is a must
 
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