I have poor radio reception on a lot of channels that most other radios get decent reception on. I was wondering if any of you guys know of any ways to improve radio reception on an aftermarket hu. Its been a while, but iirc I used to get better reception with my stock reciever. It was never really a problem because I always listened to cds or mp3s, but I listen to the radio in the morning and of course the station I like is fuzzy.
try replacing the antenna or antenna cable (you don't need to mount the new one, just ground it and plug it in as a test) and check your head unit's ground connection. It should be to bare chassis metal; not using the factory harness ground wire.
Perhaps when the after market unit was installed the antenna wasn't plugged in. Some Vehicle's are a pain in the butt to get in. I recall having to get an antenna extension once because the stock one was to short to plug in.
my oldswas a pain in the Azz, my suburban needed to have a 5 inch extension to the main wire just to catch the headunit. I was forced to stick my haand under the suburbabs razor sharp dash , hold the wire in place slide the radio in and plug it in once the radio was seated in place. i slit my wrist o the dash , luckily not bad. So in relation to not plugging in the antenna wire, yea I wouldn't be surprised.
try checking that the antenna is cecurly connected at all joints. mine came loose in the rear c pillar where it connects to the factory booster from all the vibration.
if you have a visible antenna then you at least know where to look. i just by chance was painting my pillars so i removed them and found a loose cable and when i plugged it back in my radio worked again