Sick of the annoying signal drops or interference when trying to listen to your Ford car stereo? Then check out these four ways to improve your car radio reception:
- Check if the antenna mast is extended
If your car has an electric or manual retractable antenna mast, the first thing to check is whether it’s extended or not. This may sound like basic stuff, but it’s really common for manual antennas to be retracted and then left that way. Because there isn’t any mechanism to prevent these masts from being retracted, anyone can walk by and shove your antenna down. It’s very common for car wash attendants to push these in to keep them from breaking off in the wash, and if someone doesn’t remember to pull it back, it’s pretty easy to just drive away.
- Check the antenna connections
If the antenna cable is poorly seated in your Android car stereo, or any of the connections are worn, loose or corroded, you’ll often find it difficult to tune into your favorite station.
So firstly, check the connection between the antenna cable and the back of your head unit. If that’s properly seated, then you may want to find a station you can tune into and then gently wiggle the antenna itself back and forth. You shouldn’t notice anything if the connection is solid. If the connection is loose, you’ll probably notice the tuner drop and then reacquire the signal. If that happens, you should tighten the antenna and check the grounds.
If you can receive a signal from a particular station, but it’s very weak, then you can install a signal booster to improve your reception. However, boosters won’t be helpful if the issue is related to obstructions like tall buildings and hills.
If you find the antenna mounting hardware or mast is rusted, corroded or broken, you need to replace the antenna. Corrosion and rust could prevent the antenna from making a good connection with your car head unit, so you can get better reception by replacing it.
Source: Cartech.about.com
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FAQ for Android Car Stereo Amplifier1.How can I populate my address book’s contacts into the Android car stereo universal? A: For downloading the address book’s contacts from your phone to the radio: firstly, you need to pair your phone with the Android head unit, then please click the contacts icon and search your contacts like the following picture: Please make sure that you use the built-in contacts in your phone, otherwise it can not be searched. Also, if your smartphone runs Android 5.0 OS or above, please allow all the submissions in your phone when the stereo searches the contacts. 2.After installing the car DVD player, I can’t hear any sound through the speakers or the Bluetooth. The music is attenuated but no phone or GPS instructions can be heard. Is there a hidden menu to give more volume to GPS and Bluetooth? A: Normally, we don’t have hidden menu to give more volume. And for setting the GPS app sound ( we pre-installed the IGO free copy version ), please check the setting below: You can re-install the IGO app from our SD card to check whether it would help or not. Besides, please enter the settings=>GPS, make sure that you turn on the GPS monitoring. You can turn up the GPS mixing ratio so that the GPS sound would be louder. As for the Bluetooth issue, if you make the phone call via Bluetooth, please well close your car windows and doors, then turn the volume of both your phone and the head unit to the middle level. You can also enter the factory setting ( the password is 126 ), and check the BT setting. 3.In case of the extra mic, how can I increase the volume ? I don’t find any possibility to adjust the mic volume in the car audio player. A: Please use the extra mic and increase the car radio’s volume. 4.I’m not able to get torque to recognize that Bluetooth is on. Therefore, I can’t connect Bluetooth to the OBD. I can connect to it from my phone but not from the Pumpkin Car Head Unit. Is there something I can do to get this to work ? A: For pairing the OBDII, you need to know the protocol of your car and select the correct protocol in “Torque”. Followings are the whole instruction: ①Please enter “Bluetooth ”application, then set the pairing code of the radio to the same one as the OBDII scanner’Generally, it would be 0000 or 1234. ( please try both ) ②Then please open the built-in torque, choose the OBDII scanner MAC address in the application setting and choose your car protocol. 5.How do I change the default music app ? A: Since the car DVD player Bluetooth is based on Android 4.4, you can download other music player apps like Spotify in the built-in play store ( need Wifi or other Internet source ) and install it on the head unit.…
Basic Knowledge of Car DVD PlayerFeatures: As a replacement for CD player, car DVD playerhas been upgraded with more functions, such as GPS navigation and iPod/iPhone input etc. What’s more, it’s equipped with display screen and Win CE/ Android intelligent OS, which left a large space to expand and add more functions. Specification: The car audio playerwhich equipped with display screen is bigger than the traditional CD player. Currently, the double DIN car DVD player is quite common. Function:With the rapid development of electronic application technology in recent years, the car stereohas become a “integrated platform”. It not only supports Bluetooth, Wi-fi, but supports DVR and hands-free etc. Input:Generally speaking, CD/DVD, FM and DAB is the way to input audio and video. But nowadays, car audio player can read and play various audio, video and document files through USB/AUX/SD card and Bluetooth. Output:Choices for output include audio signal and RCA. To transfer the signal to DSP processor, few stereos would also support optical and coaxial output. Touch screen: More and more in-dash car DVD players are equipped with the HD touch screen. Therefore, the sensitivity and response speed of touch screen are important standards to measure the units’ Sound quality:Most Android car head unitis equipped with single DVD pick up head, which don’t perform as well as special CD pick up head. Thus, we’ll recommend users to buy DSP audio processor additionally.
How to Install an Android Car StereoFirst, turn off the electricity to the machine by removing the live battery wire from its station. After disconnecting the battery, you’ll need to take off the trim boards enveloping your car stereo. Each car just a tiny bit unique here. Next, you need to dispatch the previous head unit directly out until the wires connected to the back are accessible. Unplug the cord, discharge the cabling harness and proceed to remove the antenna cable by unscrewing it. The cabling harness is the structural fastener that integrates all of the cabling for the sound system into an individual connection. The new head unit you have purchased should have included an adapter that matched the factory installed cabling. The end of the cabling on the end, should have four to eight colored wires coming from the back. There should be two such wires that plug to each speaker; one positive one negative. Most negatives are shown with a black stripe while positives are generally either solids or have a white stripe. If your new car DVD player does not come with an adapter that works with the harness in the dash, you need to purchase a cabling harness kit. The new harness will have to be plugged into the new stereo. Match the colored wire to its match and put them together. After having the wires connected to their proper match, the stereo should be ready to install. Hold the system to the dash to plug the proper connections into the back. You can pause and test what you have done to make sure you have correctly pared the wires. Once you find that everything is in order; proceed to carefully push the unit all the way into the dash and replace the screws. After the stereo is mounted correctly, put the trim boards back up and reattach everything holding them in place. Finally, you got a new Android stereo for your car.
