Antenna for Sony AM/FM/SW car stereo

[gwhayduke]

I have a Sony CDX-270S car stereo head unit. This unit is a predecessor to the CDX-GT470, referened at the link below. The SW bands over which it's operable ars SW1: 2940kHZ to 7735kHz, and SW2: 9500kHZ to 18135kHz(except 10140kHz-11575kHz)

I bought it originally because I thought it might allow me to listen to BBC or Voice of America or something while on roadtrips. Since installing it, the reception has always been poor. No matter whether it's day or night, I can only pick up 2 stations.

Is there an antenna out there that someone would recommend for use with this head unit? The unit has a single standard motorola antenna input.

CDX-GT470U  Shortwave AM/FM Car Stereo :: Car Stereos...

 

[k9rzz]

Since nobody else has any ideas ...

Read the manual. Make sure you're not missing a setting in a menu somewhere. Check your connections again. I know that with my HF transceiver IC706mk2g, it doesn't require much of an antenna to hear plenty of stations. Just a 4 ft whip hears plenty.

It must be something simple that's being looked over.

I really enjoy having the ability to listen to shortwave while traveling.

Good luck!

 

[kb2vxa]

This may sound kind of dumb but are you tuning the appropriate bands for the time of day or night? Rule of thumb: higher frequencies for day, lower for night. Then too being at a solar minimum, daytime propagation rather sucks raw eggs so the "car radio" whip just may not be cutting the mustard and still a "better" mobile antenna would probably give you soft boiled eggs.

Now here's where things get tacky, and a bit tricky too. You COULD try the various ham antennas being they operate near the SW bands and 40M is 7MHz after all BUT then you need to change antennas or retune (depending on type) for each band and then they're useless for FM broadcast so now you need to start switching around... and still no guarantee, you're at the mercy of the radio gods. Yeah, tacky and tricky but hams tend to be that way. (;->)

 

[ridgescan]

Since nobody else has any ideas ...

Read the manual. Make sure you're not missing a setting in a menu somewhere. Check your connections again. I know that with my HF transceiver IC706mk2g, it doesn't require much of an antenna to hear plenty of stations. Just a 4 ft whip hears plenty.

It must be something simple that's being looked over.

I really enjoy having the ability to listen to shortwave while traveling.

Good luck!

Good advise from what I believe is the only member here who has actually taken SW mobile. K9, you should tell him what you run on yours to give him an idea which way to go from his stock antenna

 

[kurt777]

Very interesting thread , as i have the same idea as the OP of this thread and thanks for the link to the stereo. although i can't find much to choose from when it comes to a stereo. Anyway i'll be watching this post to see how it turns out.

 

[ridgescan]

I been sitting here wondering why this thread just died-the OP has only made 2 posts since Feb!! Too bad-this one got my curiosity up.

 

[kb2vxa]

Maybe one look at the ultimate porcupine gave him a heart attack and HE died? (;->)

"Good advise from what I believe is the only member here who has actually taken SW mobile."
Now that's a bit odd, European car radios commonly tune AM, FM, SW and LW being outside city centers and in mountainous areas there is no "standard broadcast" reception. FYI, North America must be the only spot on the planet where unless they have the radio bug people don't look outside the AM and FM portions of the spectrum for broadcast entertainment. Wrong forum for posting this question maybe?

 

[kurt777]

his join date was in Feb , the OP posted this on 4-26-09 . got me curious as well . hhhmm guess i'll just have to give this a try with what little info i do have

 

[gwhayduke]

This may sound kind of dumb but are you tuning the appropriate bands for the time of day or night? Rule of thumb: higher frequencies for day, lower for night. Then too being at a solar minimum, daytime propagation rather sucks raw eggs so the "car radio" whip just may not be cutting the mustard and still a "better" mobile antenna would probably give you soft boiled eggs.

Thanks for all the great replies. After getting the reply "check your menu sittings", I decided to sit down and do learning about the basics before asking more questions in this thread.

Ok, I have hooked the head unit up to a roof mounted Firestik AM/FM 3 foot antenna FireStik AMFM3-B AM-FM Antenna. With that antenna in the roof position, I get fairly good SW reception on the high frequency 9500kHZ to 18135kHz band. I seem to be able to pick up Australian and New Zealand stations fairly well. I still can't get much on either band during the day. Also, reception seems to be very sensitive to antenna placement on the car. The roof mounted position is much better than the hood channel position for the antenna, which is where I'd like to mount it.

I'll post again after tinkering some more.

 

[ridgescan]

I still wish K9RZZ would give us some hints here as he has had success. Your roof is generally the best groundplane on your vehicle. Are you using a magnetic mount? If so, I think a better ground to the car body would help. Firestik really brags up your antenna as having a lot of "capture space" so Im thinking grounding better will drop the noise floor and allow in real signals.

 

[k9rzz]

I'm glad you're getting something. You don't say where you are located, but try the 11.8, 13.8, and 15.2 mhz bands during the day. Starting in the late afternoon, 9.8 mhz would be the band of choice and even that band closes down pretty badly after dark here. Then its 7.4 and 6.0 mhz for the night.

Keep at it, you'll get it running right.

Edit: I've gotta clean out my car tonight yet, so I'll shoot some pix of what I'm running.

 

[gcgrotz]

Izzat your car Warren? I knew you were a radio nut!

I use my FT100 with a 6ft whip in my pickup truck for SW and ham use, works ok but there is a lot of electrical noise.

I would think the Sony, like all car radios, has a high impedance input for the typical car antenna.

 

[kurt777]

does anybody know where to buy a shortwave car stereo ? the above link that the OP left does not carry that one anymore .

 

[k9rzz]

#3 on the Google results list for "shortwave car radio"

CDXGT280S*Sony*Car*Stereo*with*Shortwave*Coverage*and...

Tuner Section
FM Tuning Range (MHz) : 87.5-107.9 87.5-108.0
AM Tuning Range (kHz) : 531-1602 530-1710
SW Tuning Range (kHz) : 2940 - 7735 and 9500 - 18135 (except 10140 - 11570)

Google

 

[stiletto]

Firestik Performance

I'm thinking of purchasing the Firestik antenna. How well does it seem to perform on AM and FM? I'm thinking of using a trunk mount, the spring and the 4 foot version of the antenna to improve my HD radio reception.

Thanks for all the great replies. After getting the reply "check your menu sittings", I decided to sit down and do learning about the basics before asking more questions in this thread.

Ok, I have hooked the head unit up to a roof mounted Firestik AM/FM 3 foot antenna FireStik AMFM3-B AM-FM Antenna. With that antenna in the roof position, I get fairly good SW reception on the high frequency 9500kHZ to 18135kHz band. I seem to be able to pick up Australian and New Zealand stations fairly well. I still can't get much on either band during the day. Also, reception seems to be very sensitive to antenna placement on the car. The roof mounted position is much better than the hood channel position for the antenna, which is where I'd like to mount it.

I'll post again after tinkering some more.

 

[ka3jjz]

Moving to the antenna forum...

Anyway the Firestik likely won't work well on AM/FM. It's simply not designed for it.

73 Mike

 

[stiletto]

Firestik's Antenna for AM FM

The antenna I am looking at is the Firestik designed for AM FM reception. It comes in a 3' and a 4' version. Here are a couple of links that talk about it.
FireStik AMFM3-B AM-FM Antenna

Results for Antennas:AM / FM Antennas

Moving to the antenna forum...

Anyway the Firestik likely won't work well on AM/FM. It's simply not designed for it.

73 Mike

 

[gwhayduke]

I'm not terribly satisfied with the Firestik antenna.

This antenna from GODAR gets good reception across the bands that that sony radio will tune (MW, SW and FM), but it's not mechanically very stable, even with the mounting hardware I bought from GODAR for the purpose. I don't believe it would handle highway speeds very well, much less the shock of offroad use.

GODAR FM DXR-1000 & FM DXR1000C TUNABLE WHIP ANTENNA

The search continues.

 

[stiletto]

The Search Continues

I emailed Firestik an hour or so ago asking them for more info. I wonder if we could modify a Wilson 1000 or Wilson 5000 CB antenna to work on SW/MW/FM? They are beefy antennas...I've had good luck with them on CB. When you say you weren't satisfied with the Firestik AM/FM...Could you be more specific. I was looking at using a trunk mount, spring and 4' stick. What do the Europeans use in their cars? What do the hams with expensive wideband mobile receivers use? I practically live in my car...

I'm not terribly satisfied with the Firestik antenna.

This antenna from GODAR gets good reception across the bands that that sony radio will tune (MW, SW and FM), but it's not mechanically very stable, even with the mounting hardware I bought from GODAR for the purpose. I don't believe it would handle highway speeds very well, much less the shock of offroad use.

GODAR FM DXR-1000 & FM DXR1000C TUNABLE WHIP ANTENNA

The search continues.

 

[gwhayduke]

Sorry for not being very specific.

I've got the 3 foot firestik am/fm antenna that I've mounted both with and without a spring. I don't find that the FM reception is very good for whatever reason. Also, I can pull in shortwave frequencies with the Godar antenna that I can't get with the firestik antenna.