Installing a DAB aerial, and getting a facelift

Some time ago, I bought a new radio for the 600 which included DAB reception on the radio. The DAB aerial supplied was a silver foil thing meant to be stuck on the windscreen, but it looked so naff I couldn’t use it. The problem that then became apparent was that to get reliable DAB reception in most areas, you need a proper external aerial. Not only are these fairly expensive to buy, the question comes up as to where to locate them on the car and how to route the cable inconspicuoulsy.



Long story short, I came up with a really cheap and easy way to add a DAB aerial, which not only works well on the radio, but I think is a bit of a facelift for the car, as it means the old-fashioned telescopic aerial can be removed and the hole filled in and painted.



What I’ve done is shown on these three pictures



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If you remove the interior courtesy light, what you find is that there is a load of space between that and the car roof. So, I drilled a hole in the roof there and installed the aerial from a Toyota Celica (98-06). That comes with a whip which is about 24” long and that needs to be cut back to about 13” to be optimum for DAB reception. The Celica aerial is easy to get on eBay.



The feed from the aerial simply comes out from under the side of the courtesy light (pic#3), towards the offside (behind the sun visor) and then down the side of the windscreen (you can tuck it right between the glass and the pillar so it is inconspicuous), then down by the door, under the driver's facia and in towards the back of the radio. I’ve been using this for some weeks now and it has proved to be really effective.



As you don’t need AM/FM when you have DAB, the old telescopic aerial can be removed, which I think improves the look of the back end of the car, or you can just disconnect it.



Bazz

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