Radio DAB / FM reception

[martin998877]

Hi, I've just got a GTi Mk 7.  I've found the radio reception quite a bit worse than my previous car which had a whip antenna.  A relative also has a GTi 7.5 and also has dropouts on DAB and FM.  We live in quite a strong signal area, the midlands, but am coming across black spots that I never have with previous cars.

Do you all get this?  And I wonder if the fin antenna is a bit too small for good radio reception?  I guess there is no solution to this?

Martin

[itavaltalainen]

I didn't have issues on either of my mk7s.
But we did on the mk6, which had broken aerial leads from the boot that got soaked with washer fluid from a split pipe.

What model year is your GTI?

[martin998877]

Thanks, it's October 2016 (mine) and July 2017 (friend's).  They both seem to drop DAB at similar places.

We might be in a poor signal area, and the previous car might just have been good at holding on!

[Jim_mk7.5]

Mine drops off a lot on DAB, been listening to Virgin and just makes a weird noise and disappears gradually. Thought DAB was always on or off, no in between. Can't compare it really as my only Golf was a Mk7.5 as well. 

[r600_clubsport]

Mine seems to be rubbish from day 1. MK 7, i've got the Alpine head unit upgrade in it, but still no better. Not sure how to get around it to be honest.

[Sootchucker]

My 7.5 seems worse that my old MK7's or indeed my wife's 2016 Polo Blue GT !

On mine, I seem to loose the DAB stations a lot more frequently than it does in her car when driving down the same roads?

Also, don't know if it's related, but when on the INFO screen when listening to the DAB channels, almost every preset I have (except Radio 2), is missing the larger station icons on that screen, but in the wife's for exactly the same stations (almost), her system downloads and displays the full size station icons immediately (even if they are sometimes different to the ones applied for the radio pre-sets logos).

[Mutley75]

Interesting this should be brought up. I don’t listen to the radio much now that I have CarPlay but I have noticed DAB reception seems noticeably worse than it was on my A3.

As for radio logos, I too have a wife with a Polo and the logos download automatically. However on the Golf it appears you have to download them yourself - https://www.volkswagen.co.uk/need-help/technology/radio-station-logos which is weird because it’s a newer car with better tech. I’ve done this and it does work, but shouldn’t be necessary in my opinion.

[Talk-torque]

Logos appeared on mine without manual loading. DAB reception seems OK, and same as previous 7s.

Isn’t there an option, somewhere in the menus, for the unit to revert to FM when DAB is marginal and a sister FM station is available? Maybe this is why some guys aren’t experiencing a problem.

[Mutley75]

Logos appeared on mine without manual loading. DAB reception seems OK, and same as previous 7s.

Isn’t there an option, somewhere in the menus, for the unit to revert to FM when DAB is marginal and a sister FM station is available? Maybe this is why some guys aren’t experiencing a problem.

I expect the dealer added them?  Either that or mine has a fault. It certainly didn’t (and doesn’t) apply a logo to newly added stations even with hundreds of them downloaded on the SD card. The option to automatically add station logos is also ticked.

[mcmaddy]

It won't download them from an SD card it's only if the radio station is broadcasting the right signal. The majority of stations on my nav pro (Dec 16) automatically download but one or two don't and need manually doing. If you live in a poor dab reception area you probably don't have a strong enough signal to tune in and get the radio logo.