Robinhood Posted October 26, 2012 Share Posted October 26, 2012 I know there have been a number of complaints about the radio reception on Transit conversions, particularly those based on the "motorhome" chassis, with the aerial mounted next to the passenger's side door mirror (as opposed to the standard position on the van roof). As originally delivered, the reception on mine, with the standard Ford radio, was acceptable, but certainly not as good as it was in my car. I have, however, replaced the factory fit radio with an aftermarket "naviceiver", and whilst the radio is fine in strong signal areas, it is not at its best as the signal drops off. After a false start (one supplier took my money but omitted to deliver - resulting in my first, succesful, Paypal dispute), I've now fitted a (cheap) attempt at improving the situation. It consists of an inline aerial amplifier, powered from the aerial feed at the back of the radio. There don't appear to be too many around, and the prices of those that there are vary dramatically by source. The one I bought was a Celsus AAN2202, currently available from Amazon at £7.92 with free delivery: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Celsus-AAN2202-Antenna-Adaptor-Amplifier/dp/B004V89I1O The real proof of the pudding will be whilst we are travelling. Subjectively, however, things look pretty good so far, with tuning on the drive pulling in many more stations (or the same station on many more, different wavelengths), and the navigation system immediately pulling (VHF-transmitted) TMC data, which it wouldn't do on the drive before. I'll report back again when I've got experience "on the move". (BTW, if anyone is considering a similar move, be careful. There are a large number of similar looking items that, on certain sites, profess to be "in-line amplifiers" but are, in fact, simply power feeds and signal splitters for an aerial that is already amplified at the mast/head end. I've only found two items which are amplifiers for an existing, non-amplified aerial, of which the one mentioned above is one. A second caveat would be about using this on other vehicles (e.g. a Ducato) - if the existing aerial already has an amplification circuit in place, as many such do, then this solution will be unlikely to offer any improvement). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ips Posted October 29, 2012 Share Posted October 29, 2012 I would be interested in your findings after a few weeks of use. I too have same problem with dodgy reception and will defo do as you suggest if it proves succesfull. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robinhood Posted October 29, 2012 Author Share Posted October 29, 2012 I shall be out in the 'van for a couple of days this week, so will report back. ;-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bulletguy Posted October 29, 2012 Share Posted October 29, 2012 Robinhood - 2012-10-26 2:55 PM I know there have been a number of complaints about the radio reception on Transit conversions, particularly those based on the "motorhome" chassis, with the aerial mounted next to the passenger's side door mirror (as opposed to the standard position on the van roof). As originally delivered, the reception on mine, with the standard Ford radio, was acceptable, but certainly not as good as it was in my car. I have, however, replaced the factory fit radio with an aftermarket "naviceiver", and whilst the radio is fine in strong signal areas, it is not at its best as the signal drops off. I've never had a problem with reception though the first thing I did was rip the daft Ford radio out and replace it with a decent Pioneer which of course you need a blanking plate to fill the gap left. Quite why Ford designed these daft radios is beyond me. My biggest bug on the AS Duetto is the roof mounted aerial. Mine had to be replaced as it had rusted away. Getting at it entails removing two inner roof lining sections, then you need someone else on the outside to help remove and refit it. You can easily write a day off for this where the same job on a car can be done single handed in 10 minutes. What on earth possessed AS to fit an external roof aerial I will never know when an internal length of copper wire would have done the job, looked a lot neater.....and save one hell of a lot of mither. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ips Posted October 30, 2012 Share Posted October 30, 2012 Prob why you havent had a reception problem as yours is on roof, ours is on wing mirror (ish) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Uzzell Posted October 30, 2012 Share Posted October 30, 2012 Bulletguy - 2012-10-29 11:21 PM ...What on earth possessed AS to fit an external roof aerial I will never know when an internal length of copper wire would have done the job, looked a lot neater.....and save one hell of a lot of mither. Presumably Auto-Sleepers chose to mount the radio-aerial on the roof of your motorhome because that's where the aerial was on the Transit panel van that formed the basis of a Duetto and Ford would already have run an aerial cable up to the roof that AS could utilise when the conversion was carried out. That taking such an approach would (as you've discovered) lead to access problems should the aerial need replacement is unlikely to have concerned AS designers one bit if the simplest/cheapest solution to providing a radio aerial on a Duetto involved exploiting the original Ford factory-fitted aerial and cabling. Why would you be surprised that AS would take the easiest (for them) option? I've yet to encounter a motorhome that doesn't have bloody-minded features that will maximise difficulties if problems arise but could easily have been avoided if a little more thought had been given at the design stage. (I believe your Duetto is based on a late-model (2000-reg?) Transit Mk 5, whereas Robinhood's and ips's motorhomes are both Transit Mk 7- based. The Mk 5 was a significantly different species to its Mk 6/7 successors, so there no guarantee that a criticism/problem relating to a Mk 6/7 Transit will apply to a Mk 5, or vice versa.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bulletguy Posted October 31, 2012 Share Posted October 31, 2012 Derek Uzzell - 2012-10-30 9:29 AM Presumably Auto-Sleepers chose to mount the radio-aerial on the roof of your motorhome because that's where the aerial was on the Transit panel van that formed the basis of a Duetto and Ford would already have run an aerial cable up to the roof that AS could utilise when the conversion was carried out. That taking such an approach would (as you've discovered) lead to access problems should the aerial need replacement is unlikely to have concerned AS designers one bit if the simplest/cheapest solution to providing a radio aerial on a Duetto involved exploiting the original Ford factory-fitted aerial and cabling. Why would you be surprised that AS would take the easiest (for them) option? Fitting a length of copper wire in the roof has to be far quicker and less labour intensive than drilling a hole and fitting an aerial. Plus......it's permanent. Not to mention the Status aerial which is mounted on the roof (by A/S) and does receive radio signals. My previous van utilised this source which worked perfectly. Forward thinking at the design stage you mention certainly doesn't appear to have figured very high at all. In fact even the most basics are flawed. Another example is the freshwater tank drain tap. On my Duetto the tank has to be dropped in order to replace the tap because its secured by a nut on the inside of the tank. A/S models after 2000 used a tap which threaded directly into the tank so could easily be replaced by unscrewing and putting a new one in.........but it took A/S more than ten years to figure that. A little basic common sense should have told anyone with a modicum of grey matter that this was the way to go from day one.........not ten years down the line. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Uzzell Posted October 31, 2012 Share Posted October 31, 2012 As far as I'm aware Auto-Sleepers fitted external roof-mounted radio aerials to all their Transit Mk 5-based motorhomes, coachbuilt designs as well as PVCs. However, AS wasn't alone in doing this as my 1996-built Transit-based Herald also had the radio aerial on the top of the overcab 'bulge'. It seems to be assumed nowadays that machines will never break down and, consequently, even a repair that's simple in principle may prove murderously difficult in practice. It would be possible to design a motorhome so that the conversion part of it was easily repairable, but the likelihood is that the result would be unattractive internally, with very visible wiring and water-hose runs. You haven't said when your Duetto's radio aerial needed replacement, but I suspect it was well beyond the expiry date of the vehicle's AS warranty. This recent thread relates how Swift fitted a submerged water-pump in a Mondial's external water-tank http://www.outandaboutlive.co.uk/forums/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=28362&posts=13 and the difficulties experienced by the owner when replacing the failed pump. But the motorhome involved was a 2002 model and the pump needed replacement in 2012. I'd argue that fitting a submerged pump in a motorhome's external water tank should be a criminal offence, but I doubt that doing so resulted in Swift being inundated by warranty claims. There used to be an anecdote about the Jensen-Healey sporstscar that went something like "Styling by Jensen, engine by Lotus, suspension by Vauxhall, development by buyer". Certainly, with motorhomes, it's the owners that discover design inadequacies, though not before they've shelled out their cash. Part of my Hobby's blown-air trunking was run through the vehicle's thickly insulated floor and, when the motorhome's floor was constructed, the trunking was accidentally crushed nearly flat with the result that virtually no warm air could be delivered to the front part of the vehicle. Luckily I was able to revise the route of the blown-air trunking so that it ran above the floor, simultaneously improving the front-to-rear 'balance' of the warm-air distribution. I mentioned this to a motorhome dealer acquaintance, saying what a daft idea it had been for Hobby to have installed the trunking within the floor when it could have been accessibly located above the floor. He replied (with a smle) that I could now take pleasure in a) whinging about Hobby's design shortcomings, b) ending up with a better heating system than the original and c) being able to tell everybody what a smart cookie I was at motorhome DIY. It's plain from motorhome forums that motorcaravanners love complaining. If motorhome manufacturers took more care at the design stage, that would mean so much less to moan about. Surely that's got to be a Bad Thing? ;-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robinhood Posted October 31, 2012 Author Share Posted October 31, 2012 ....well, I can only provide a further subjective opinion (a controlled test would require repeated removal of the radio, which I'm not going to do), but so far so good. I've had a couple of days in the Peak District, traversing some areas where I know reception (as a whole) isn't good, and things have been quite acceptable. I'd certainly like to do a bit more testing before I'm sure, but I think it is an improvement. It occurs to me that it might not be quite as easy to fit to the standard Transit radio, as the power is supplied via a connector that replaces a "pin-out" receiver in a standard ISO plug. (i.e. the radio on-off controlled power-out connector for an electric aerial relay, etc), which was simple to achieve on my aftermarket radio. The "pin-out" for this feed on the back of the standard Transit radio appears to be part of a (smaller) proprietary plug, not an ISO one, and I suspect it will be a matter of making a more permanent connection (if, in fact, the outer side of the plug in question is populated at all on this pin), or going for an ignition-controlled feed (slightly less desirable). My original radio is somewhere up in the loft, so I might have a quick look at the connector sometime. For anyone considering it, the radio removal "keys" are proprietary to Ford, but available very cheaply on eBay (and make sure you have your radio code!!). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bulletguy Posted October 31, 2012 Share Posted October 31, 2012 Derek Uzzell - 2012-10-31 9:08 AM You haven't said when your Duetto's radio aerial needed replacement, but I suspect it was well beyond the expiry date of the vehicle's AS warranty. It's plain from motorhome forums that motorcaravanners love complaining. If motorhome manufacturers took more care at the design stage, that would mean so much less to moan about. Surely that's got to be a Bad Thing? ;-) Well out of warranty. Never bought a vehicle in my entire life still under warranty! But my aerial experience is worth noting. The aerial A/S used was a rubber duck type (possibly what came with the Transits at that time). Not only are they rubbish at reception but even worse, the base mount is a chromed ball joint.......made of steel. The chrome flakes off.....the steel then begins to rust away until it's rotten and the aerial eventually just falls off. This was what had happened to mine. I replaced it with a glass fibre whip off a Citroen and a plastic base mount off a Rover 200. Both items from my local scrapyard, cost a couple of quid.........and won't ever rust. Rather than 'moaning' I prefer to term it constructive critisism. As for your squashed trunking, I wouldn't see that as 'accidental'..........that's careless shoddy workmanship. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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