Bad radio reception Possible fixes??

[Ike66]

OK so today i used the tuner in my car for the first time, normally I just use my ipod adaptor for my pioneer headunit. Anyway i was getting pretty fuzzy reception on most channels with the antenna up and down. I do remember though that when i installed the headunit in my car there were like 2 antenna plugs one big one and a tiny one but the new headunit had only one plug on it so i just plugged the big one into the headunit. Should i have used the smaller antenna plug? Or are there any other things i could try to get better reception out of the stock antenna? Thanks for any help.

 

[Defiant]

That's the "Diversity Antenna" which uses the regular mast antenna, and a couple of wires in the hatch glass as some kind of pud-yank auxiliary antenna. An adapter exists which runs them both together for "normal" radios, but I don't know if the parts guy would just look at you like the RCA dog [Nipper] if you asked for one.
You should be okay with just the mast antenna- are your connections tight and clean?

 

[Ike66]

Yea, all the connections are soldered togther and the antenna wire is plugged all the way into the headunit. Ill have to search around for that adaptor it may just be where i live...although my friends car gets really good reception out around my house, but then again it is a BMW with their nifty internal antenna thing.

 

[luv2rallye]

You must have both ends of the coax shield going to the antenna grounded well also. And you might check the continuity of the center coax wire with the antenna mast too.