Quote: Originally Posted by
Alfredbra 
hi, I bought one of these and installed it today. works fine in centrafuse but reception is quite poor. If I touch the aerial with my hand reception improves significantly and the software shows more reception bars. What the hell? tried grounding it aswell but only made it worse lol. any ideas. Im thinking about hooking it up to stock antenna or buying one of those shark fin fm antennas or something any ideas on what to use? and can someone confirm middle wire is signal on the motorolla lead cable and do you have to ground the outside? thanx
What you're seeing is normal, the sensitivity of this radio is very low. Touching the antenna with your hand turns your body into an extension of the antenna, and your body resonates pretty well at FM freqs, so it becomes an amplifier.
Yes, the middle is hot, the shield is ground. As for needing to ground the radio to the antenna shield, "probably". You'll need to try. Depending on where you have the USB Radio in the car, it may need the shield to extend the ground plane of the radio. Each installation will vary...