Vista 29VE 2019 radio poor receptiion

[Noah4448]

The radio in my Vista has had poor reception since its purchase. Under warrantee Camping World, where I bought my Vista, has replaced the radio twice and the radio harness once. My Silverado can get 88.5 WAMU 35 miles farther away from the radio station before the reception starts to degrade. I am about 35 miles from the station. There doesn't seem to be any pattern to the poor reception. I contacted Winnebago who sent me onto the radio manufacturer, Pioneer. The support was helpful but there was no improvement. Camping World said they had the same issue with another Vista they tried out.
1. Is anyone else having poor reception on either the Pioneer MVH-AV290BT or the AVH-501EX (HD radio)? If so were you able to fix it?
2. My thought is antenna is the same one that worked fine on a non-HD radio but on an HD radio is insufficient. Your thoughts?
3 Installed Sirius/XM. If you have installed XM radio how did you get the antenna on the roof and did you need to put a ground plane underneath the antenna?

[SLOweather]

1) We have an aftermarket Pioneer entertainment center. In my limited experience (we don't listen to AM/FM much) it works OK. See #2.


2) The PO of our Sunstar removed the AM/FM antenna entirely. I replaced it in kind. If your overhead compartments are like ours, it's pretty easy to get to the under side of the middle of the roof where the antenna is and see if anything is awry with the antenna connections. It might benefit from a ground plane. The cable has a shield wire and terminal to connect to something. Even some aluminum foil tape might help. Else, you could add an aftermarket antenna on a pillar



3) The PO glued the SiriusXM mag mount antenna to the fiberglass eyebrow over the driver's seat, along with a GPS antenna, and drilled a hole in the roof for the cables, which he sealed with acrylic latex household caulk. The SiriusXM antenna didn't work very well. I left it in place, sealed the antennas and hole with Dicor, and added a marine SiriusXM antenna near the AM/FM one. It works great. I made a new cable entry into the eyebrow, and used a Winegard roof entry plate, butyl tape, stainless screws and Dicor to seal it. (The plate seals 3 cables, an amateur radio antenna, GlobalStar sat phone, and the SiriusXM.)


If you want t try the mag mount antenna, I would test it on about a 4" galvanized plate glued or taped to the roof, and run the cable in a window. A 4" electrical box cover works.

[SLOweather]

Forgot to ask a question... Have you verified that the antenna cable is fully plugged into the back of th radio?

[Noah4448]

Originally Posted by SLOweather

Forgot to ask a question... Have you verified that the antenna cable is fully plugged into the back of th radio?

Thanks for checking the answer is yes

[SLOweather]

FWIW, the AM/FM antenna cable in our Sunstar runs up the A pillar on the driver's side. There was a lot of excess cable wrapped up in there. You might pull that cover off (3 screws in ours) and see if it is OK, or got pinched or something.


I ran a lot of other wires and cables in there, too (the other antennas, control wires for the motorized amateur antenna mount, and a couple of 12 VDC runs for overhead lights I installed.) There is plenty of room.

[gretnagreg]

In my opinion, if it's like mine was it's mounted only to fiberglass and the antenna is not grounded to any metal whatsoever.

[htbotdvr]

I have a after market radio with gps and blue tooth also changed my antenna to one with wire wound on the outside also mine hs a setting list and I always keep it in distance not local, good luck