XRS GPS radio reception went sour

[Lo Cash John]

Hey guys,

My wife has an 03 XRS that came with the radio/GPS option. The antenna is the little short unit mounted to the rear center of the roof like every other Matrix (That I've noticed).
Recently, she told me the radio quit picking up local stations and that it only gets static. It plays CDs fine, does the GPS thing fine, controlls the CD changer just fine, it just won't pick up any radio stations.
Early VW Golfs had a very similar roof mounted antenna with a small signal amplifier built into the base. These were notorious for going bad with the exact same symptoms:loss of signal reception. The common fix in the VW world is to bypass the signal amp with a little wire and a soldering iron. This gets the siganl on down the wire and to the head unit.
Has anyone heard of such problems with the Toyotas?

John

[acrylucs]

The only time i encountered this is when my FM antenna plug fell out of the back of the stereo. You can easily check by pulling the system out of the dash and making sure that the FM plug is still plugged in. Total loss of static suggests a full break in the wiring, and given everything else working i'd put a bet on either a snapped wire, or the plug.

[edmellnik]

Yes either the antenna plug came out or the power to the antenna preamp came apart.
This usually only kills AM . I believe there is some kind of preamp circuit that gets its power form the same lead that is there for power telescoping antennas.
I have a matrix 2004 and I put in a aftermarket radio and before this cable was connected
AM was nothing.