DAB radio interference

[Poundy]

So our DAB radio seems a bit hit and miss, sometimes works great and sometimes no signal. I recently had a Nextbase Duo camera fitted

and noticed when no signal and I turned the Cam off it came back on. Not convinced it is purely down to the Cam though as it had happened

before I had the Cam fitted on a couple of occassions. FM is fine so happy using that but have noticed when travelling any longer trips in the

XF that DAB seems more stable than FM. Any help appreciated, Thanks

[sorcerer]

It's well known and documented that dashcams can affect DAB reception, but if it was happening before the camera installation then as you say, it can't all be down to that.

Ours has been perfect since we bought the car in February but has started with flaky reception and cutting out about a week ago now. FM is far superior to DAB (given DAB's low bitrates in use) so I'd be happy to stay with FM but my favourite stations (Planet Rock, Absolute Classic Rock) are DAB only, so I'm well annoyed and would loke to know where to start looking to fix the problem, so I'll be watching this topic with interest.

[Poundy]

I think it is probably a set up problem as much as anything else. It only shows a handful of stations on a Hereford & Worcs channel, whereas the DAB on the Jag, lists Multi Channels and loads of stations. Of course the CT Nav book is about as much use as a candle in a storm for information on the unit, which seems quite common for Japanese produced cars. I think the books lose a lot of information when being translated into English, where many other foreign car makers tend to do a stand alone language publication.

Too hot to sit out there and mess with it today but will try and get into it when I have a bit more time and patience, it's been a hard day and I need beer lol!

[Poundy]

So cracked on and eventually made progress today albeit probably the long way round, as the nav book was of little help and refreshing DAB just came back with no signal.

What I found worked for me was to go into DAB and select Manual, I then pressed the right arrow on the dash (between the Radio & Media buttons).

Once it had searched and found a clear channel, I toggled right to the next page with the joy stick, selected preset from the menu and pressed and held down on the joystick and it preset that channel to number 1

I returned  to manual, right arrow to next channel and repeated the presets another five times.

Once I had my six preset channels showing on the preset screen and had selected one to play, I toggled right again and selected Stations from the menu this brings a drop down list of all the stations on whichever preset channel is selected.

So even though it was a long winded effort from an old timer lol! I now have 6 preset channels all of which provide a number of station each and at the moment seem unaffected by the dash camera.🤞 fingers crossed

[DanD]

I find that, given the number of stations available, having only 6 presets is a bit measly and a pain.

Sent from my LG-H930 using Tapatalk

[monte92jj]

I have had the same issue , previously I had a RAV4 hybrid and didn't connect bad DAB signal with the dash cam until I got a new cam and it completely messed up the radio. On the Lexus I have tried putting the cam at all 4 corners of the screen and it always kills the signal, interestingly if you turn on the cam without plugging it in to  the car 12V the radio is fine , so it is something to do with feedback on the 12V Cable, I have used a fully shielded cable on the cam and it makes no difference. As the CT200 only has one 12V socket right next to the USB ports I was going to try and find a 12V supply somewhere else but have not been able to locate a suitable feed anywhere. Does any one have any experience in loacating a 12V Aux feed on the CT200?

[sorcerer]

I had a lightbulb moment with mine when I realised that the DAB radio only lost signal when I selected reverse gear and that a few days earlier I had replaced the wedge-type incandescent bulbs in the reversing lights with LEDs, so obviously I can put up with that and don't need to do anything further.

3 hours ago, monte92jj said:

I have used a fully shielded cable on the cam and it makes no difference

Have you tried ferrite chokes - may be worth a go if you haven't.

Plenty of posts on Google seem to indicate that it's the electronics in the plug that you plug into the 12V socket/cigar lighter. If you don't use it as a 12V socket but only ever use it to power 5V items, you could perhaps take it out and replace it like I did in my RX300 (pic below). Alternatively, hard-wire the dashcam using a power supply that piggy-backs into an existing circuit in the fusebox like this one. They seem to use better and 'less noisy' voltage conversion circuitry

 

 

[stormchaser]

I’ve also found in the past that certain earthing points can cause interference. Try moving the earth to another point. It’s always worked for me.


Sent from my Iphone using Tapatalk