Loss of radio reception.

[swensonator]

Hey, I have a 98 gen 4 camry LX ("premium" sound) that I just put a new head unit in (pioneer deh-16). Before I put in the new head unit the stock unit got great radio reception (I have the inside the back windshield antenna), but now that I put in the new head unit my overall reception usually has a lot of static. Occasionally if I'm in the middle of some flat, open field with no buildings within a mile of my car I can get good reception, but just driving around the city the reception is pretty bad. Not only that but the reception completely disappears if I go under a freeway overpass or come within a few hundred yards of the mountains (neither of which happened before I replaced the head unit).

I my head unit just plain bad for radio reception, or is there something else I'm missing? Does the camry stock stereo have some sort of signal booster built in that I'm now bypassing and that's why I'm getting bad reception, or what?

If anyone could help me or has experienced the same thing I would really appreciate some info.

[Knailgun]

ok...I'll help the noob.

check the installation...was the coax for the radio waire scraped or gounding out? Secondly I'd like to belive that you don't have a power antenna, but if you do....check and make sure it is hooked up as well, the pioneers are a station magnet by the way.....shouldn't be the radio

[swensonator]

The coax looked fine. No scrapes and it's not touching anything to ground out on. Like I said, the car has the built in antenna under the back windshield, so it's definitely not a power antenna. When I connected the new head unit, the antenna coax fit nice and snug into the back of the unit, so I don't think there's any doubt about it not being properly connected or having a bad connection.

Anything else that might be causing the problem?

[Bruce Campbell]

my 94 camry has two antenna wires a large ans mini and i recently put in a pioneer hu as well and my reception was awfull with just the big one pluged in. There was only space for the big one. I have a power antenna and once i powered that it was better but by touching the mini antenna plug to metal my reception increased three fold even with the antenna down and not powered. Im not sure why or what the mini plug does but if you have that try grounding it to metal even taping it to the head unit or wraping a spave wire from the harness around it helps

[Corollacrazy42]

apparently there is a point to the "mini" wire then.. it probably is something you guys are supposed to be hooking up and failed to do.. now i dont knwo anything about pioneer H/U but i do know that they have really good reception when it comes to the radio.. they freakin idolize that feature alot.. like the new supertuner III or something.. pretty much no other factory assumes people listen to the radio anyway lol.. but thats my opinion on the situation

[swensonator]

I took out the head unit again and saw that there were two coax cables a large one that fit into the back of the head unit and a smaller one. I did like you said and touched the mini cable to ground to see if it would increase reception, but it didn't help at all. I disconnected the larger coax from the HU and put in the smaller one (it doesn't fit, but I could hold it in place) and I got about the same quality reception. So, obviously the smaller coax does something...Does anyone actually know what it does or why it's there and how I can fix my problem? I though about maybe cutting off the connector and splicing the two wire together before the hu, but I don't want to do anything drastic until I can find out more about what it's for.


Comments anyone?