I was in the midst of doing the S2000 antenna swap and started the van without any antenna attached (the stereo had previously been on FM, set to the local NPR station) and, low and behold, I was able to receive it. Did I need an antenna at all, or was the length of wire going from the radio to the antenna screw down good enough? Driving around a bit caused it to fade in and out a lot, and when I pressed the scan button the radio did not lock onto a single station, so this was obviously not going to work, but it gave me an idea.
Back home sitting in my driveway I reinstalled the Odyssey’s original buggy whip antenna, started at the bottom of the FM dial, pressed scan (got to tap it quickly to get those stations right next to each other), and counted how many stations the radio was able to lock onto: 28 on average. Remove the antenna completely: 0 stations locked. When I installed the S2000 antenna and preformed the same test, it was consistently only able to find and lock 13 stations. Bummer, I think.
My understanding of the scan on most radios is that the signal strength must be above a certain threshold for the radio to find and lock onto a station. I could tune in the NPR station, for example, and even get a stereo signal, but the radio skipped it when scanning with the S2000 antenna installed while it found it with the buggy whip attached. Does anyone know if, once a station is strong enough to reach you in stereo, boosting its signal will achieve better clarity, or will a given antenna setup with signal amplifier simply be able to find, lock, and produce more stereo stations?
I’d like to use the S2000 antenna, but short of adding an inline signal booster, I can’t see giving up half the stations where I live.
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’90 4Runner – lacking for a family of 5
’02 GG Odyssey EX-L-RES – my new best friend
tnuckels
