car fm radio antenna booster

[redlinealley]

I never had the factory radio in my Coupe, PO had already removed it. When I purchased the car I had an alpine head unit installed and still had poor fm reception. Has anyone had any luck with a fm radio antenna booster.

[Mr Bingley]

You mean radio, as in broadcast through the airwaves? Do they still do that?

[redlinealley]

Huh....

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[RedconOne]

I ran one similar to above in my GTI when I replaced the stock antenna mast with a shorter 'bee stinger' mast. It helped, somewhat. Still didn't seem as good as the stock VW.

Z's have the OEM amplified base, same thing right? It certainly cant hurt to try.

[redlinealley]

Ok.. I will check the amplified base out for any corrosion first and see if all connections are ok.

[jsun]

I just got a 2000 coupe with factory radio unit. The signal is terrible even though the unit is in perfect condition. But I am going to replace it with a sony unit so that I can just listen to my own music via bluetooth going forward..

[redlinealley]

My Alpine has a USB port. So I just plug in thumb drive that has about 3k songs on it, but sometimes I like listening to a station.

[Mr Bingley]

I mean mine connects by bluetooth to my phone and I just stream whatever I want to listen to--podcasts, Apple Music, Pandora, NPR--you name it, it's on the internet. I haven't tuned in to an actual radio station in years.

[DimrBimmer]

I tried one of these. Had good reviews on amazon. It is still installed. Does absolutely nothing for improving reception with stubby antenna.

[redlinealley]

I pulled the antenna base out of the car and it looked clean, no corrosion. Next up I tore the Alpine HU out of the car to check the antenna cable. Now the PO had the car broken into and the thieves cut a bunch of wires stealing the radio and amp including cutting the antenna cable. I had a shop install the Alpine HU and Alpine amp. They tried fixing the cut antenna cable, but I guess not very successful. So I bought a 44" extension cable and cut what I needed and soldered them both together. I now have Radio reception again.20190622_192234.jpg

[spfd72]

“I just got a 2000 coupe with factory radio unit. The signal is terrible even though the unit is in perfect condition. But I am going to replace it with a sony unit so that I can just listen to my own music via bluetooth going forward..”

l recommend looking at the Grom unit. It adds Bluetooth, usb capability to the OEM headunit (which is not a bad head unit; albeit dated functionally) and maintains OEM look.