1997 XK8 Radio reception
 

Hi,

I have noticed that the radio in my 97 XK8 has quite a 'fuzzy' reception on most channels. Only one channel works ok (talk radio) . The problem becomes most apparent when music is played at volume. I have a bluetooth casette and when i play music through that the sound is 100% fine. I have checked if anything has come lose at the antenna end but everything seemed fine. Any tips on what to check or any with the same problem ?

This is a strange one. When you say Fuzzy at volume, are you describing distortion that occurs when you turn the volume up? I don't think so expecially because you mention all is OK with one channel (talk station), but I had to ask. Help us understand if it is the higher volume that makes it easier to hear that there is distortion there, or if the distortion starts when you turn the volume up.

If you take the blue tooth cassette out of the picture, (physically out of car, disconnected & turned off) is there any change at all?

It could be a failing radio but let's think of other things first:

Thinking out loud: you are either getting bad reception from your location (does this distortion change at different points in town?); from your antenna / antenna connection (you checked this).

or something's interfering with the FM band signals:

You could be getting RFI (radio frequency interference) - that's why I asked about bluetooth device, different locations in town/on your travels. (Interesting story: I remember years ago, folks who lived near one of our President's home town raised hell everytime he came to visit his family or something - Practically anything radio frequency based went down. None of their garage door openers worked. This was all because of the blanket of radio based security measures he was surrounded by! Who knows maybe none of the local sheriff's speed traps were put out of business too Ha ha) .

Does the level of distortion ever change (as it wams up for example)?

Do your CD's sound undistorted at high volume? (long shot but want to be sure it is not a power supply issue)

I suppose a 21st century FM car radio could have a FM demodulator component start to fail and cause this but wow, that would be very rare.

Aalkul, wish there was an easy answer on this, but I'm not sure. Let's keep trying to narrow it down.

Hi and thanks for the reply.

The distortion is always there at every volume level. But gets pretty obvious when the volume is turned up. The reception on Swedish national radio 1 is perfect. I have that stored in memory on channel 1. The other channels are all variously distorted. Sometimes they get better and sometimes worse. I have tried putting the channel that works best into memory on all buttons (1, 2, 3 etc) and it works just fine on all those. I have a bluetooth cassette that i plug in and the sound on that is great. I purchased the cassette a few days after i got the car, the radio was like this when i bought the car.

The level of distortion does not change with the heat going up or when i rev the engine. I have noticed a changing level of distortion depending on where i am driving. It's just like i am getting a bad signal/reception. There is no CD changer mounted in my car so i can not check that out.

Is your radio head unit set to your COUNTRY frequencies? There are different frequencies used and the radio needs to be set to the correct one.

The 1997 XK8 radios in the US can be set to USA (North America) or AUST (Australia).

I don't know what is available for the ROW (Rest Of the World).

TSB 415.01 has info for the US. I attached a few more.

bob

Thank you guys,

Tried changing the country on the radio... Seems that it isn't an option on my radio.. I can change the tape clean message and antenna clean,, rds etc but button 1 does not seem to change anything..

I am going to strip the antenna assembly today,, clean the contacts .. see if that improves matters ..

If it should improve matters i will post a walk-through of the process :)

Hi Guys,

I removed the contacts to the antenna and cleaned them .. Turning the radio on after each contact. After i removed the braided steel wire that connects the antenna to the body of the car, cleaned it and screwed it back in place the radio sounded like new :)

Thanks for the help guys ..