Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Maintenance & Servicing DAB Radio swap, Help Please

Spent the day in the garage, took JVC DAB head unit out of our Mini Cooper as it is not used that much, plus has hands free iPhone for iPhone. Took Alpine unit out of Morgan and fitted into Mini and worked first time.

Fitted JVC unit running mic, and fixing seperate DAB unit behind where the Head unit goes, pluged up FM/DAB splitter cable, connected the ISO blocks, switched on and nothing. Looked at JVC wiring diagram and looked at lead colours on the Morgan side and yes you've guessed it they are not in the standard places. So out with the meter and after checking I find a switched feed off the ignition key, but not constant feed So I swap the cables around in the block and try the head unit, and it powers up. But do not seam to have a constant feed

Check it out FM works but what no DAB signal, check blue and white stripe ancillary cable is connected to feed to the splitter and yes it is so the splitter should power on when the unit is on. Check again. I am stumped, either I have a dodgy splitter or I have missed something.

Any advice on what to check would be great.

What are your aerial arrangements - in both cars?

Not too much experience with current DAB units as I'm now deaf but I can recall a basic FM aerial is useless for DAB. There are aerials now that do AM/FM/DAB but I suspect even those are less good than a dedicated aerial for each band.

Stick up the jvc model details then people can look at the manual on line.

The mini didn't use a power amplified DAB aerial did it?

Have a word with Tarka pj he installed DAB install using standard mog aerial to great effect.

Hi Mark,

Hope you are well, it's JVC RD-K901 with seperate dab tuner

I am somewhat confused, I suspect the issue is that the ISO plug for the power feed is not as normal, if it was then the unit would have just fired up, good old Morgan. I have been mulling it over and have a suspicion that even though I now have power to the unit with key turned that there may not be a constant feed and due to this when the unit is switched on it does not send power to the ancillary blue white strip lead which should power the aerial splitter. Or could it be that I need to Earth the body of the splitter. Or perhaps I have a duff one?

Work tomorrow, if it's not to cold I wrestle with it Sunday.

Hi Martyn, I'm trying to use the standard aerial which Peter J did using a Dab/FM splitter.

Not sure if I followed you properly but you need a constant supply as well as a switched supply, Ive just fitted an all singing/dancing Sony unit to my Plus8 -1999), everything worked fine on the drive but when I took the car out I lost the DAB, I suspect this is because i have had to use a separate windscreen mounted Ariel for the DAB & I think the heated windscreen must be blocking the signal so any advice on alternative aerials would be welcome.

On a second point,I am also looking to change out the speakers , which I'm really struggling with , these are cheapo Realistic speakers ( supplied with the car) which fit into a 110mm hole , but the depth is only 32mm, and i don't want to fit spacers unless there is no option so if anyone has went through a similar exercise i would be grateful( again ) for any pointers as to what is available
Ta

Adrian

I went as far as downloading the manual, but I'm none the wiser from there really. I'd still be inclined to think it's an aerial issue, but quite what is another matter. You certainly won't get a normal AM/FM aerial to cover DAB, although there are some 'converters' that are probably just a hairy amplifier for the DAB frequencies. BBC national DAB stations are all on 225.648 Hz, over twice the FM frequencies.

Does the select of the DAB unit seem normal, except there is no sound or acting as though there is no transmitter in range - points to an aerial issue if so.

The Morgan wiring loom ends, for the radio connection, in 2 rectangular female connection blocks, one is for the speakers, the other is power and so forth. These are to a common ISO size, shape and wiring layout.
Wiki explains:

ISO

Between these and the radio is a single 2 into 1 connecting cable block, with many wires. These ISO to Radio connectors differ between radios, even different models from the same maker.

So when removing the radio from one car it is essential to remove this link connector. If you have removed a radio from one car you may find that there are no ISO connectors and the radio is hard wired. To fit it in another car you have to buy the specific connector block.

As far as using the MOG Antenna for DAB is concerned, I got a powered splitter from these people:

DAB On Wheels

It is powered by the feed from the radio that would otherwise power the antenna. My radio needs 2 12v feeds, one is on all the time and the other is the power proper.

The result is excellent: the radio works best with the MOG antenna only extended by one section.

When I sold Aldermog I removed the DAB radio and put it in Tarka, the Morgan supplied radio went into Aldermog.

Hi Martyn

When you select DAB the unit reports no DAB signal, this presumably means the DAB Tuner is doing its stuff but there is no aerial signal. I will recheck connection.

In the garage I have a dab tuner pluged up to a spare Morgan Aerial just propped up and it works. Also Peter J got his working with a splitter.

Thanks for taking time to have a look.

Make sure the JVC radio menu has got "power antenna" selected to supply 12v via coax to antenna.
DAB/FM splitter also requires 12v (unless feed from radio supplies it)
Try to get the antenna element vertical if using an internal antenna as DAB Signals transmitted with vertical polarisation.
I have a JVC FM/DAB fitted to my 2010 +4 with on screen antenna which works well enough (screen does have heating wires)