DAB reception - which aerial?

[philKS2]

Hi - about to change my current Sony stereo in the S2 for one that does DAB radio... most of the stereos come with a window aerial...but does anyone know if I can use/ adapt the standard rooftop aerial?

Phil

[philKS2]

and...

And does anyone know...

If I use bluetooth to stream music straight from my iphone to the car stereo... will that stop my iphone from being able to use its bluetooth to talk to my hands free Parrot at the same time??

I know Kenwood and JVC do mobile hands free units as add ons to their car stereos, but I already have a Parrot fitted.

[Christophski]

I have a blue tooth stereo and it has parrot built in too so when I make a call or get a call the music automatically dies and the phone function works instantly. Not sure if it would be the same on a seperate system like the one you are going with.

[johne]

You can use the standard aerial but I think you'll find the connector is different.

On Blaupunkts (the only DAB radio I've got experience of) there's a seperate aerial input for the DAB from the standard FM/MW input so I used a splitter in the standard aerial cable so I could feed both. It worked but I found that the DAB dropped out in some parts of the country due to low signal so in the end I bought the (expensive) Blaupunkt amplified DAB aerial which fits in the same place and looks very similar to the standard aerial but has two outputs, one for DAB and another one for the FM/MW.

If you don't want to go to that much trouble, just use the windscreen aerial supplied.

John

[Greg_S]

I have just fitted a Kenwood DAB and FM radio which came with a separate DAB antenna for the windscreen, i would recommend going with that and keeing the separate FM aerial and the DAB uses an SMA connector and will be more sensitive to electrical noise. http://www.caraudiocentre.co.uk/prod...1u_p-27102.htm very pleased with it so far and DAB reception has been pretty good

[Ilkorin]

I got a kinetic STIC aerial as per:

http://www.dabonwheels.co.uk/Kinetic_STIC_DSA-3001_DAB_car_aerial.html

and I've got no faults whatsoever with it.. it also sits nicely at the top of the windscreen out of the way.

Just don't forget to turn phantom power on! These aerials perform terribly unless they are powered

[philKS2]

Thanks all... well I've ended up going for the Alpine CDE-136BT model. It was the only one that combined the features I really wanted:
- Good quality make
- DAB radio
- bluetooth music streaming
- iphone compatible
- REAR aux inputs

It was just under £300 including the windscreen DAB aerial (my existing standard rooftop aerial will plug in separately). The bonus is it also has built in Parrot hands free for mobile including a separate mic (ie: NOT just built into the front of the unit)

I'll let you know who it works out.

Phil

[urS6Tom]

How did the DAB head unit work out? Any problems? Would you recommend one?

Cheers,
Tom

[benntenn67]

I have just fitted a Kenwood DAB and FM radio which came with a separate DAB antenna for the windscreen, i would recommend going with that and keeing the separate FM aerial and the DAB uses an SMA connector and will be more sensitive to electrical noise. http://www.caraudiocentre.co.uk/prod...1u_p-27102.htm very pleased with it so far and DAB reception has been pretty good

I'm going to hang back until they launch the DAB/tape player