DAB IS 300h

IGGY · February 7, 2019

I'm delighted with my newly acquired IS 300h Exec, however the DAB radio is showing "no signal". This has been the case wherever I've tried it, from Lincoln to London via Norwich. I'm wondering if this is a problem for anyone else? Am I missing some setting?

200h · February 7, 2019

i find on my local motorway the Dab is very hit and miss

i've never had no signal though,since you have only just

bought the car inform the dealer and get them to look at the car

200h · February 7, 2019

you can test loads of functions from the hidden service menu.

get in the car and press the power button (dont press the brake pedal )

press and hold the menu button

then turn the headlights on & off 3 times

you will enter a service menu

i think its the 2nd menu keep using the next page button and you will come across a dab reception menu

turn off the ignition to exit the menu

ColinBarber · February 7, 2019

Have you tried getting the list of nearby stations and selecting one of those or are you just going through presets, because if they were set out of area they may not be available and the system doesn't always do a good job of finding another station.

darrude · February 7, 2019

There is a thread on here somewhere, I had a similar issue when I got mine, it's not obvious how to set it up. From memory a weird antenuation setting or something.. good luck, post back if you can't find it and I'll see if I can find it for you.

Thackeray · February 7, 2019

It might be that your radio is broken. But you might just have fallen into the maze of commands for the radio that is so confusing that it would put the Hampton Court maze designers to shame. I've had the car for quite a while and still don't understand the logic behind the menu structure. And yes, I have read the manual - I find it unintelligible.

However, on seeing your query, after a bit of experimentation I managed to get to a screen that showed a list of stations and a message saying "signal unavailable", while at the same time no sound came out of the loudspeakers. Having got to that point (the Lexus equivalent of the centre of the Hampton Court maze) I then managed to work out how to get back to the list of working stations. This might be what you're seeing or it might not. In case it is, I'll describe the steps I took to escape from the maze.

I should add that I normally use the DAB stations successfully, conveniently and without any problems, even as I travel from one end of the country to the other.

So first of all, is your radio working? Turn on the radio and then press the small button marked Radio, next to the one marked Media. The radio should cycle through FM, AM and DAB. If the FM or AM is working, the radio is probably not broken.

But if you still get "Signal Unavailable" when you get to the DAB screen, you could try what I did to escape from this screen. Bear in mind that I have the standard audio system, not the premium one. So yours may not be the same as mine.

But here's what works on my car:

Using the Audio Controller (that's the one to the left of the gear selector), starting from the DAB screen, move the Controller wheel to the right and then select "Manual". Instead of the list of stations, you should now see the name of one station, preceded by the name of an "Ensemble". You may already know what an ensemble or a multiplex is - I didn't before I had to grapple with this system. More on this later. If you still see "Signal Unavailable" this means that this "Ensemble" or group of stations is out of range so you need to switch to one that is in range.
On the radio itself, press the small button labelled with a right arrow (I expect left works just as well). This should take you to the next Ensemble, where you may have some reception. Give it four or five seconds to decide whether it's working or the signal is still unavailable. If it's also unavailable, press the arrow button again to try the next one until you get a working station. If none of the stations work, the problem is elsewhere but if one of them does go on to step 3.
Move the Audio Controller to the right and then select Stations. A list of the stations on this Ensemble should now appear. You can select from them using the Audio Controller, the arrow buttons or the tuning knob.

In my case, the reason I had a screen saying Signal Unavailable was that the Ensemble was out of range. The reason for this is that it was a local rather than national ensemble. Obviously, you can easily get out of range of an Ensemble that is only transmitted in part of the country. But national Ensembles are available..... nationally. So you're much less likely to lose the signal for a national ensemble and its list of stations.

Sorry this has been so long but I'd be interested to know if it was of any help.

IGGY · February 8, 2019

Thanks for your replies. I'll play with this over the weekend and report back.

Steve44 · February 8, 2019

If you try some of the national BBC stations, they are pretty much available anywhere. They may change channel in the background in different UK areas, but the car should retune automatically to find the same station, as they stay in the same DAB ensemble.

If you try some of the myriad of other stations, then coverage will vary, ensemble and station will change in different areas, so it is a bit hit and miss.

Start with trying BBC Radio 1 or 2 first and see how you get on.

The DAB aerial is one of the copper line's in the top of the rear screen - the bit that doesn't defrost. Some people reported issues with DAB coverage when the heated RR window was on, but it was individual issues, not a wide spread problem. I generally do not have issues with DAB coverage or reception.

Thackeray · February 10, 2019

I was pondering whether the DAB setup is as poorly designed as I thought it was, or whether I'd just missed something obvious that makes things easy.

It turns out it's just badly designed. On this pistonheads page there's a comment half way down that explains that the setup is modelled on early DAB radios. To quote Tobeman:

Quote

On the basic radio, it has old-school DAB like my first DAB radio where you had to pick the multiplex you want before you could scan through stations within that particular multiplex. On my first DAB radio at home, you could just switch through multiplexes. On the basic Lexus IS300h radio, you have to go into the frigging service menu (which requires you to pat your head while rubbing your stomach while licking your elbow, or the equivalent of using various pedals and switchgear in the car when it is turned off) to switch multiplex.

So that explains it. You have to pick an Ensemble (Multiplex) first and then choose from the list of stations. As I understand it an Ensemble combines several radio stations into a single stream of data.

I've never come across a DAB radio like this. The one I have at home just displays all available stations from all Ensembles alphabetically. I can't thing why you would want anything else. To leave the Lexus design in its current roughshod form is just unfinished programming. It shouldn't be allowed on a car that has the most elegantly designed transmission on the market.

The solution to this bad design, however, is to use Presets. Once they're set. this saves you the effort of switching from one Ensemble to another. There are only six DAB preset slots available, which isn't many. But there are another six on FM. In total that's enough for most day-to-day requirements.

And most of the rest of the car is a delight, which makes it worth tolerating this bit of poor design.

BigChange · February 11, 2019

Have to confess I am baffled by the DAB radio tuning and having struggled for some time, abandoned it and stuck with FM. It's a ridiculous setup. My inexpensive home DAB radio puts it to shame.

Blisteringblue · February 11, 2019

It really isn't obvious, but yes start with BBC and save a couple of favourites you should then be able to find all on the BBC Multiplex, then once you do finally pick another nationwide station on something like the D1 national multiplex again bookmark it. You can then usually manually search all the other stations on that multiplex with your Media Dial.

Lovely car absolutely dreadful infotainment experience.

Thackeray · February 19, 2019

On 2/8/2019 at 8:33 AM, IGGY said:

I'll play with this over the weekend and report back.

Any luck with getting the DAB radio to work?

wh05apk · February 23, 2019

I had issues with mine when I first got it, the issue was a cheap 12v usb socket, dab is prone to interference, so if you have any phones or dash cams connected try disconnecting them, they may be causing the problem. Now I have changed the usb socket mine works perfectly very rarely dropping out.

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

Pink · July 18, 2019

When I picked up my IS from Lexus Reading last year the sales guy made a real effort to programme all my favourite stations in the presets during the handover stage. At the time I thought it was almost overkill customer service, but looking back I’m glad he did, as its clearly not the most intuitive DAB system out there!

IGGY · July 18, 2019

I asked Lexus to programme the DAB when it was in for service. Good News: They did this. Bad News: I now have a list of stations that I would never choose to listen to.

My plan is to have another go and see if I can load the standard BBC stations somehow. The Ashes starts soon so this is becoming desperate!