Ariel Amp Feed Lead?

[Paulgo]

Hi. My radio reception is practically non exisitant so trying to get to the bottom of it!! Trying to trace the usual culprit of the power lead to the bee sting amplifier at the ISO end. At the ariel end its a black wire.

At some stage the original ISO block has been cut off leaving:

Red/Blue - 12v
Brown - earth
grey / blue - illumination?
white / blue - no idea
white - door open buzzer

So when I tried connecting the white lead, which I thought was the amp feed, to the 12v out the amp head and it just sets off the door open buzzer - heard of this before! Put 12v to the other white / blue lead and it has no effect at all and certainly doesnt make any difference to the radio Anyone know what this lead is? Nor the white/blue lead. Its entirely possible the amplifier is borked but Im not sure if Ive found the right lead to test it with yet so feeling a bit stumped!

cheers

Paul

[diesel des]

Test if there is 12v at the ant. Mine had and it was just the amp that was fooked.

[Jamo]

the grey / blue is illumination for the head unit i.e when you turn on your lights, doh got it mixed up

White = door open buzzer?????

You can buy an inline booster thats been documented on the forum to remove the need for the amp aerial

[mcandmar]

Isnt the white power for the amp in the aerial?

Fitting a new aerial stalk does wonders, a mechanic at my local audi garage pointed out mine was bent and cracked that will cause reception problems, i told them i didnt really care as i dont use the radio and they gave me a new one for free

[Jamo]

Yeh thats what i thought but then i dont have a blue/white or grey/blue wire, i had too wire an illumination wire myself of the aux guages.

Also from the above i'm seeing the ignition wire is missing?

somebodies had a good time with that wiring!

[Paulgo]

Yep, thats seems to be all thats left of the original harness, Had a look at the diagrams on Mike's site and it doesnt look the same, so tis well odd. Sure there's a pic in someones post of the ISO plug & wiring in an S2, be useful to compare, have to dig the thread out. Its had at least two different cd changer instals and a pretty professional tho quite old phone set up at some time, by the looks of what remains under the back seat - also bits of broken window / screen glass which is a bit worrying! Wonder what got smashed? Fascinating delving about in the 14 year old archeology of yer motor!!

What I have found out is that the amp looks dead, least made no difference when I connected it directly to 12v - wot I didnt do was check the existing 12v feed to it to! Not sure if the one thats on is OEM - has a sliver band around the base which doesnt look standard to me. Will check up on those inline boosters - seen em on ebay also - looks a good solution and will elimate the "missing" white lead!

Thanks for all the help guys!

cheers

Paul

[pastures16]

does this help paul he might have the wiring aswell

[newsh]

Have a hunt around behind the dash, you may find a second ISO connector, I'm sure I had 2 back there, with different shapes..

[Greg_S]

Just been trying to get my radio reception sorted, is there a 12V feed behind the stereo that needs to be connected or does it need an inline amp instead for the aftermarket head unit? Had to do this recently on the Seat when I changed from the OEM stereo on that.

thanks

[mcandmar]

I'm 99% sure its the white wires that need + power. And on a 90 they seem to power the headphone socket unit on the back parcel shelf too.

I connected mine to the remote aerial signal which seems to work, the output thats supposed to raise your elecy aerial when you turn the radio on.

[Greg_S]

I'll take another look and see if I can find the white cable and try it out.

[Cullam3n]

Use a old-fashioned multimeter (get a good ground), or even better a multimeter tester. No need to guess. I used one when I replaced my head unit because my power wires were all messed up. I hooked the ground up directly to the battery and went to town. Found my +12v, found my ground. My accessory was rather weak so I spliced the +12v so that it was always on, which doesn't bother me as the head unit has a power button and I can't be bothered to get behind the dash to rewire the acc. You should also find one that gives +12v when your dash lights are on (for lighted OEM head units).

[s2driveruk]

I just replaced my base with one from a vectra (fine if you can ignore the less swept back angle) installed it and bingo, FM reception was back again!