Poor reception

[plazmapete]

Hi all.
I have just fitted an after market radio in my c180 k sport W203.
It works great apart from the radio which is very poor. I can hardly get any stations. I have a dual fakra to din which is powered but its crap. The guy who sold it to me tried it in his car (not Mercedes) and it works fine. The only way I can get it to work correctly is by fitting a normal aerial.
any ideas ???

 

[plazmapete]

I have been told that I need to put 12volts to one if the pins in the back of the radio. Think its pins 9. any ideas ?? thanks

 

[richard]

Why have you got a dual-fakra to din converter ? You should be using only the Black Fakra. You also need to use the antenna power out of your new head unit to power up the antenna system on the Mercedes, and it is one of the pins in the quad lock. Assuming you used the proper converter loom it will be with the instructions ...

Richard

 

[plazmapete]

yes I had to get dual fakra. put power to it and don't get many stations.
the old radio get loads, noticed the new radio has a blank gap where these pins should be. The guy who sold me the radio told me about putting 12 volts to pin 9.

 

[richard]

OK, you have an 06 C class.
- This means your car (for the antenna) has a black fakra, possibly a mustard coloured fakra, and power for the antenna system is separately fed (rather than phantom fed over the antenna fakras)
It also has the QUADLOCK connector for the stereo power and speakers etc

So, what you need is
a) Single DIN to Single FAKRA converter plugged into the black fakra of the car
b) The antenna power output of your new head unit (likely to be blue or blue/white) connected to the car's antenna power which is on the Quadlock, I can't recall the pin number but you've been told pin 9.

If you do that, it should work fine. If you don't do that it wont work properly.

As I said, I don't know why you have a DIN->double fakra converter - you do not want to connect to the mustard fakra if your car has it, and you definitely do not want to be sending power up the COAX or you may break the antenna amplifier as it is not expecting 12volt feed there.

Richard