AVIC Z2 Bad Radio reception

[burniksapwet]

I've been having bad radio reception ever since I've gotten the z2. I was wondering if anyone can help me with my problem. I had audio express take a look at it and what they did was added some power going through the power antenna. Although it has helped out I am still getting a hissing and scratching sounds. Did you guys have to use an antenna adaptor? I have some a sub and two amps in my car, could any of the wiring from those be the cause? I don’t know a whole lot about this and hopefully someone here at 8th gen can help me out. Thanks.

[06si]

Originally Posted by burniksapwet

I've been having bad radio reception ever since I've gotten the z2. I was wondering if anyone can help me with my problem. I had audio express take a look at it and what they did was added some power going through the power antenna. Although it has helped out I am still getting a hissing and scratching sounds. Did you guys have to use an antenna adaptor? I have some a sub and two amps in my car, could any of the wiring from those be the cause? I don’t know a whole lot about this and hopefully someone here at 8th gen can help me out. Thanks.

You will need to use an antenna adapter to get it to work properly. You can buy them from Circuit City for like $30 i think.

[burniksapwet]

Originally Posted by 06si

You will need to use an antenna adapter to get it to work properly. You can buy them from Circuit City for like $30 i think.

I suspected that. The installes never installed one (based on what was said to me) because I think the civic has a built in one. If not a built in one I guess it fits just fine without the adapter. So does this mean that even if it fits fine without the adapter it does not mean it would work right and I still need the adapter? Why did they not catch this if thats the case? Thanks for the help.

[06si]

Originally Posted by burniksapwet

I suspected that. The installes never installed one (based on what was said to me) because I think the civic has a built in one. If not a built in one I guess it fits just fine without the adapter. So does this mean that even if it fits fine without the adapter it does not mean it would work right and I still need the adapter? Why did they not catch this if thats the case? Thanks for the help.

The adapter is not a replacement antenna. It just integrates the stock one better with the aftermarket headunit.

Here is what I'm talking about
Honda Antenna Adapter Motorola Male to OEM Female at Crutchfield.com

[burniksapwet]

Originally Posted by 06si

The adapter is not a replacement antenna. It just integrates the stock one better with the aftermarket headunit.

Here is what I'm talking about
Honda Antenna Adapter Motorola Male to OEM Female at Crutchfield.com

Can you hook the antenna up to the z2 without this adapter? If you can then I think I don't have that adapter in there but if its not possible then I know that they've installed that adapter and my problems are coming from something else.

[06si]

It is possible to hook up without the adapter but will sound fuzzy and crappy. Try going to circuit city and asking them if you need one and have them order it and install it for you.

[burniksapwet]

Originally Posted by 06si

It is possible to hook up without the adapter but will sound fuzzy and crappy. Try going to circuit city and asking them if you need one and have them order it and install it for you.

So there is a way to hook up the car antenna into the z2 without the adapter, right? If you are sure about that then I know for sure that I don’t have one because just like what you said I do have a crappy reception.

[volvo9]

There is no way to hook the honda antenna up to the Z2 without the adapter. The Honda antenna end is rectangular and the Z2 has a standard round.

My radio sucked ass when I put my Z2 in also. I used the antenna adapter and even supplied power to the wire on the adapter, still no change. I never really bothered to look into it much since I haven't listened to FM in years.

[burniksapwet]

Originally Posted by volvo9

There is no way to hook the honda antenna up to the Z2 without the adapter. The Honda antenna end is rectangular and the Z2 has a standard round.

My radio sucked ass when I put my Z2 in also. I used the antenna adapter and even supplied power to the wire on the adapter, still no change. I never really bothered to look into it much since I haven't listened to FM in years.

Damn!!! That's exactly where I'm at right now. I don't listen to fm that much but it would be nice for it to be working properly you know? So you never got this problem fixed? What can I do to get the reception to be a lil bit better than where its at?

[tommygii]

I just had my z2 installed with an antenna adapter. also had new component speakers intalled with amp. while the radio does sound like crap (compared to cd's) it may be simply that hearing it through a higher quality audio system makes the difference easier to hear.

[volvo9]

Originally Posted by tommygii

may be simply that hearing it through a higher quality audio system makes the difference easier to hear.

So yours is fine? Mine was all static, like 1 station worked and it was still static.

To the OP, no I never fixed it. Once I found out it didn't work I did some testing, but could not figure it out. When I put the stock deck back in to trade in the car FM was fine, so nothing was actually wrong with the antenna.

At first I had the wire on the antenna adapter powered by the radio, but when I found out it didn't work right and heard that some decks can't power the antenna booster with the power ant wire I wired it in directly to a 12v switched source and it made no difference, so I said f*ck it. It would have been nice to have fm, esp if I'm on a trip and want to hear something local but there's just too many commercials for me to justify fixing it.

[burniksapwet]

Someone suggested to do this:

Many HU's have a built in signal amplifier which is powered via the yellow & green wire of the antenna sub harness. You have to splice this wire to the blue & white wire of the HU's wiring harness.
*Note this is in addition to the plugging the antenna connector on the sub harness to the antenna jack on the rear of the HU.

Did you do this? Do you think it will actually work?

One more thing I forgot to mention is that I added an external antenna ala civic hybrid. So I should have been getting good if not excellent reception. I have two amps to power up my sub and my speakers so do you guys think that it could be the problem? If so how do I address this and what can I do to test this theory? Really need some help here. Thanks.

[burniksapwet]

Bump

[volvo9]

Originally Posted by burniksapwet

Someone suggested to do this:



Did you do this? Do you think it will actually work?

That's the wire I powered, the one dangling off of the antenna harness. I powered it with the radio's "remote" wire at first and then a seperate switched 12v source later on.

[burniksapwet]

Originally Posted by volvo9

That's the wire I powered, the one dangling off of the antenna harness. I powered it with the radio's "remote" wire at first and then a seperate switched 12v source later on.

And you still got nothing huh? Damn that sucks. Do you have any wild ideas that I can do that might work? Like I said I already went as far as adding an external antenna ala civic hybrid. I got it to bE a lil bit better but still crappy. Would going to hd radio be better? Problem is z2 is not hd radio ready. I think its time to get a z3.

[burniksapwet]

Bump.................................

[volvo9]

Originally Posted by burniksapwet

And you still got nothing huh? Damn that sucks. Do you have any wild ideas that I can do that might work? Like I said I already went as far as adding an external antenna ala civic hybrid. I got it to b a lil bit better but still crappy. Would going to hd radio be better? Problem is z2 is not hd radio ready. I think its time to get a z3.

I wish I had more but I'm kinda out of ideas. That wire you have to power on the antenna adapter is to power the antenna amplifier. Most or all antennas that are integrated into windows need an amplifier to work properly, without the amp powered the signal sucks. In my wonderings of why my FM sucked even though that wire was hooked up I wanted to know if the antenna amp was actually on, but didn't have any information as to where to find it.

At one point I swapped in a JVC single din radio since I was having problems with my Z2 (high temp heat lockup, Pioneer released a DIY fix). I think I still had crappy reception with this radio but it was a bit better (got like 5 channels instead of 2 but they still had too much static).

Do you have tinted windows? I tinted mine almost immediately and I've heard of some people losing reception with tinted windows. I'm wondering if the antenna amp is working but the stock radio is a lot more sensitive? That would explain why my 2 decks sucked yet when I swapped the stock deck back in for trade the reception was perfect...

I don't know much about HD radio. I think it works off of your existing antenna, but the signal is digital on the HD stations.

[burniksapwet]

Originally Posted by volvo9

I wish I had more but I'm kinda out of ideas. That wire you have to power on the antenna adapter is to power the antenna amplifier. Most or all antennas that are integrated into windows need an amplifier to work properly, without the amp powered the signal sucks. In my wonderings of why my FM sucked even though that wire was hooked up I wanted to know if the antenna amp was actually on, but didn't have any information as to where to find it.

At one point I swapped in a JVC single din radio since I was having problems with my Z2 (high temp heat lockup, Pioneer released a DIY fix). I think I still had crappy reception with this radio but it was a bit better (got like 5 channels instead of 2 but they still had too much static).

Do you have tinted windows? I tinted mine almost immediately and I've heard of some people losing reception with tinted windows. I'm wondering if the antenna amp is working but the stock radio is a lot more sensitive? That would explain why my 2 decks sucked yet when I swapped the stock deck back in for trade the reception was perfect...

I don't know much about HD radio. I think it works off of your existing antenna, but the signal is digital on the HD stations.

I do have tints on my civic but its non metallic and I've been having this problem ever since I installed the z2. I’m running out of IDEAS. I would even go as far as saying that my am is better than my fm. Sound quality is not as good as it should be but at least I don't get any static on FM. I appreciate your help volvo, hopefully some other members can shed some light on this problem.

[volvo9]

If worse comes to worse, I'd just buy this...
Universal Antenna Hideaway AM/FM car antenna at Crutchfield.com

[flomofo]

i have the adapter hooked up with the blue wire hooked to the blue power antenna wire on my kenwood harness (its a kenwood dnx-8120) and it gets crappy ass reception on a station right next to me that can be heard clearly from 3 cities away on my stock radio.

thinking of cutting power antenna wire off to try that now.