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No AM reception

By michaelma9 · Oct 02, 2008in Problems/Troubleshooting💬 10 posts👁️ 1,527 views
Posted Oct 02, 2008 · 21:09 UTC#1

So I have a F90bt installed in my civic hybrid. I used a splitter on the antenna cable with the adapter so I could plug into my HD radio receiver as well. I get nothing on the am station but the FM and HD come in just fine. I just attached the power lead on the adapter cable ( just found out it was for the oem antenna amp) but still no AM, but HD improved a little bit.

 

AM worked with the OEM radio very well.

 

Any ideas?

 

Anyone install in an 8th gen Civic that get some AM reception?

 

Mike

Posted Oct 02, 2008 · 22:55 UTC#2

Try disconnecting the splitter and have the car's antenna run only into the radio and see what kind of AM signal that gives you.

Posted Oct 03, 2008 · 05:03 UTC#3

Thanks, I will try that next time I tear into the dash.

 

Anyone else have any thing to try? Hopefully I could group them together...

Posted Oct 03, 2008 · 15:35 UTC#4

HD Radio is half baked on this unit in my experience. It is constantly switching between digital and analog signals. Also, the presets do not show the station frequency, and the RDS implementation isn't great.

 

I ended up removing the HD Radio box from mine and sending it back.

Posted Oct 03, 2008 · 16:23 UTC#5

So Bob, how did the HD module affect your AM reception? Make any difference when it was connected or not?

Posted Oct 03, 2008 · 17:01 UTC#6

The installer didn't put an antenna splitter on it. So the one antenna lead was hooked up to the HD Radio Box. On the HD Radio tuner, I couldn't get any AM, and the FM and AM tuners on the F Series didn't work at all either. Lack of AM (which is showstopper for me) combined with the digital/analog switching, and lack of preset frequency display was enough for me to ditch the HD Radio box.

 

I'd much rather have functional AM (which is great with the basic tuner) than HD FM. When it worked, the HD FM sounded great, but it was inconsistent. I do wish the regular FM tuner had RDS. Pretty lame it's not included.

 

I hope you can get them all to co-exist!

Posted Oct 04, 2008 · 05:55 UTC#7

So I tried to get reception again at lunch and was able to barely get one station in AM. So I guess hooking up the amp worked a little bit but reception is still really lousy, nothing like the oem radio nor other pioneer units I have had before.

Posted Oct 04, 2008 · 08:57 UTC#8

Try buying a second powered antenna for either the deck or the HD tuner. Then use the factory antenna for the other. Worked for me

Posted Oct 04, 2008 · 14:32 UTC#9

If you're having issues with AM reception with an antenna amp my other thread may help you out. I had a similar problem with my '08 VW Rabbit and found a solution that doesn't involve a second antenna.

 

http://avic411.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=18361

Posted Oct 05, 2008 · 00:55 UTC#10

Thanks gjas18,

I had the amp first hooked up to the acc lead then saw that the antenna power lead put out 300ma and thought that would be plently. I'll try connecting it to a more powerful source and see how that goes.

If not, a second antenna might be in the works.

Mike