Radioshark to Car Antenna - Page 2

theminor · 04-25-2006, 09:41 AM

Head Units double left and right channels to front and back speakers. But you get fade control. Most car amps will let you control fade though by the levels for each speaker. Head units with DVD/Dolby or Surround capabilities can output true surround. I've got surround working perfectly on my Windows install .

I'll keep you posted on teh Radioshark, but it might be a week or so before I get to starting that part of the project!

godraj · 04-25-2006, 10:15 PM

Sounds good. I'm going to give the sonud card one more shot, then I'm going to have to pick between going back to HU or splitting the sound from mac mini. Depending on how that goes, I will get to radioshark this weekend. But i'll keep u posted on that progress.

godraj · 05-01-2006, 11:26 AM

Ok, so I spent a whole day playing with this to get the best signal possible. But basically what I found to give the best signal was to have the + of the rca cable go onto the FM antenna on the board, and the - of the cable to go onto the AM connection on the board (farthest from the FM). I also tried using the - of the RCA cable to go onto a ground location on the car but that made it so much worse.

So my setup is basically this: rca (+) wire to FM antenna, rca (- or shielding) wire to AM antenna connection. Out side of the Radioshark all you see is a Female RCA port. On the car end, I have my stock antenna that goes into a Motorola/BNC adapter, then I have a BNC to RCA male adapter. So ultimately in the car I have a Male RCA, and on the Radioshark I have a Female RCA. One thing that I did notice was the signal got a lot better if I pushed all the adapters together, because the stock antenna isn't forming a good connection witht he Motorola/BNC adapter. So what I'm going to do is get this:
http://www.crutchfield.com/S-LAr89Yi...display=XL#Tab
I will cut this in the middle and solder the wire ends to the Radioshark. This way I'll have a female Motorola plug on the Radioshark, which SHOULD plug in with a good connection to my car antenna plug.

theminor · 05-02-2006, 06:30 AM

Wow thanks for trying all that - this has turned out to be a very helpful thread! So what sort of reception are you getting after making the connections this way? how does it compare to the Radioshark alone and how does it compare to radio from a head unit?

godraj · 05-02-2006, 09:47 AM

The radioshark alone is unusable. To the point that you would just turn it off and go back to itunes or just silence. Right now the reception is in and out, and still unusable. I just ordered the motorola female plug wire, which sould give me 100% connection with the car antenna wire. I wil tell you how that works. But so far, I've noticed that if the connection is physically a good connection it sonuds about 95% compared to headunit, which is a VAST improvement compared to radioshark by itself.

theminor · 05-02-2006, 10:58 AM

Wow that is really good to hear. I think I can live with 95% for sure. Please keep us up to date when your new stable connector comes in. I'm hoping to get working on my radioshark this weekend and I'll post when I do!

vfinterceptor · 05-06-2006, 08:16 PM

Not sure if anyone figured this out yet or if it has been answered but the cable from the car antenna to the head unit is indeed co-ax cable. I'm not sure if it is co-ax for am or fm transmital though.
I do know that most am units perform better with a loop style antenna, an fm receives better signals with two antennaes (as opposed to one).
Not sure if this provides you any help, I'm just throwing out the info.

I'm probably going to try the radioshark myself as I seem to miss the radio more than I thought I would.
Radio's are not really my thing but as a flight engineer I have access to techicians and engineers who are well versed in the subject and may be able to work out some of our problems with their help. I'll post if I find any significant improvements when I inevitably start hacking mine (be patient, I need to get one first!

)

Cheers

BJ

theminor · 05-07-2006, 10:08 AM

Quote:

I have access to techicians and engineers who are well versed in the subject and may be able to work out some of our problems with their help

That would be excellent - any help you can provide would be appreciated!

I'm pretty sure that in most headunits, the antenna wire is used for FM while an internal loop antenna within the head unit recieves the AM. I could be wroing but I think I remember hearing that somewhere.

I haven't gotten to installing my radioshark in the car yet, but my plan is to set it up just like godraj described above. I'll use coax to go from the radioshark to the antenna input plug in my car.

vfinterceptor · 05-09-2006, 01:09 PM

As soon as I get a radio shark, I plan to start hacking, just looking for the best price right now. Shipping to Canada seems to be pretty pricy everywhere.
As I remember, AM uses a loop antenna. Often, an AM antenna consists of a core with wire wraped around it (ususally a carbon rod I think with progressive copper windings). I'm sure it's more techinical than this and if I remember properly from my electronics course (looooooong time ago) there are some calculations nessesary for length and number of turns of wire.
Fm works with the single wire antenna, but is even better with the "rabbit ear" style antennaes or two culminated antennas. If I remember correctly, it has to do with the length of the wave (fm is much longer than am), but that's all a little bit too techinical for our purposes here (and that part of my memory is pretty dusty!).

More to follow as I get into it........

BJ

godraj · 06-08-2006, 04:52 PM

Anyone have any new updates?
I have recently tried using a femeale antenna cable to replace the rca cable that I used in my last posts. This provided a 100% connection between the radioshark and the car antenna, however has decreased the signal strength; which is very odd. I am going to make some more adjustments to it this weekend. If i can't get anywhere, then I am convinced that the radio shark just can't be used for car setup. In which case someone needs to make something that can be used OR will just live without radio.

vfinterceptor · 06-08-2006, 04:57 PM

Nah, I'm going back to the head unit instead of continuing to pour money into this thing and end up with less functionality than what I started with. i'm also tired of chasing the sound quality and imaging issues with the usb sound card. My head unit has a usb connector so i'm going right into that from the computer. Sorry boys, you'll have to figure it out without me.

Good luck.

BJ

theminor · 06-08-2006, 05:54 PM

I am not ging up on this, but the project for me is on hold until the end of July because4 I'm studying for the Bar exam which takes up every moment of my life. Once I'm done with that and I can once again taste the sweet taste of freedom, the radioshark will become a priority. Update us about this weekend, though godraj - very weird about the antenna wire...

Sorry I can't help much right now. I will be back in soon!

godraj · 06-09-2006, 09:10 PM

no problem theminor. i will keep you posted once i work on it this weekend. Goodluck on the bar.

akula169 · 08-28-2006, 12:22 PM

I recently reboxed my radioshark as well.

The reception has vastly improved. I added a motorola connector to the FM and a new AM loop that I snagged from a indoor tuner.

I noticed some confusion about where to wire up the FM leads (AM leads are a no brainer). I found an alternate ground, the square hole open on the top of the board where it is labelled J9. So, the center pole of the motorola connector is soldered to the board where it is marked FM, and the outer ring of the connector to the new alternate ground I found on the RadioShark board.

UPDATE: I'm now wondering if using the vehicle's ground might improve reception - maybe utilizing the metal on the car as antenna might not be a bad thing... of course, could add tremendous amounts of noise and interference...

I haven't run the car outside of the garage with the RS hooked up, so I don't know how reception is affected when the car is moving, but in my garage the FM reception is pretty good. I'm still fiddling with AM, as I'd like to mount the loop under my dash. Problem is that the station I listen to the most comes in best when the loop is standing up in a way that would be impossible to mount... maybe things will improve when I get fully installed and moving on the road. If not, I may look into wiring into the rear defroster for use as the AM loop.

numbers · 08-29-2006, 01:45 AM

Grounding the antenna to the car chassis will kill your reception quicker than a picture of oprah kills your woody.