Hi everyone!

So I've just recently got a 2013 Fiesta Titanium X with the Sony radio in. The DAB reception is pants, I can get radio 2 but not a chance of getting Heart or Magic. I'm in an area with good DAB signal so was wondering if I have a problem or is it just pants! 

1 hour ago, Timb0 said:

The DAB reception is pants,

quite a common problem. I personally think DAB is well over rated for use in cars.

Does your car have a dashcam fitted ?

I fitted an aftermarket double din and for the first 6 months DAB was as uno says PANTS, after multiple reboots and retunes its actually behaving itself and finding ALL stations available to me ..... Blackburn Lancs.

On 1/17/2022 at 9:11 PM, unofix said:

quite a common problem. I personally think DAB is well over rated for use in cars.

Does your car have a dashcam fitted ?

No dash cam James but after a bit of mucking about I've managed to get a few more stations.

Can't offer any fixes, but the DAB Sony radio in my 2013 Focus is excellent, both in terms of sound quality (noticeably better than FM) and the number of stations I receive.  I reckon I receive about 50 stations - maybe more, though admittedly that includes a few duplicates, like Heart Essex, Heart London, Heart 4 Counties etc. so I'm probably picking up from several different transmitters.

So to answer your question - no, it's not pants.

Your symptoms sound like what I get if I remove my aerial to go through a car wash - you might have an aerial problem???

1 hour ago, alanfp said:

admittedly that includes a few duplicates, like Heart Essex, Heart London, Heart 4 Counties etc. so I'm probably picking up from several different transmitters.

So to answer your question - no, it's not pants.

Your symptoms sound like what I get if I remove my aerial to go through a car wash - you might have an aerial problem???

I agree that it is possible he has an aerial problem. However we don't all live in the London area and I can tell you that DAB in the North East of England is very poor. 

i used an ariel splitter on mine and it made a big difference well worth the £32.00 it cost better than the faff and expense of a dedicated one.

21 hours ago, unofix said:

I agree that it is possible he has an aerial problem. However we don't all live in the London area and I can tell you that DAB in the North East of England is very poor. 

Point taken! 

And maybe this illustrates your point - while I was waiting to pick someone up today I thought I'd do a scan as I wasn't happy with my estimate of 50 stations in my previous post. Within a few minutes, I found 116 stations!  Yes, I know I've got too much time on my hands.  Incidentally, that is way more than my Pure DAB radio indoors.

20 minutes ago, alanfp said:

Within a few minutes, I found 116 stations! 

For some crazy reason I re-scanned my DAB yesterday just to see if things had improved recently and I've got "22" stations and 4 of them are duplicates !!

14 minutes ago, unofix said:

For some crazy reason I re-scanned my DAB yesterday just to see if things had improved recently and I've got "22" stations and 4 of them are duplicates !!

So you don't ever go through the sheer agony that I do (talk about a 'first world problem') of deciding which 96 stations to leave out of my 20 presets 😉