2006 Volvo S40 2.4I . Original Volvo radio (# 30679647) just puts out static . CD player is fine . Is problem radio itself or is problem in antenna system ??? How do I test to determine ??? Thanx .

Hi,

I’m not that savvy about electronics or of radios per say, but I suspect there is a problem with the radio antenna frequency signal (RF) coming in.
The next part is of the super heterodyne section of the radio the signal processing.
The setup matches the RF or turned into an internal (IF) signal that goes out to the amplifiers. The preamplifier feeds the next larger amplifier in the radio or to a remote one.
Several ways to pass the buck but they all have to follow a certain flow procedure.

The CD section puts its signal injected at the preamplifier, by selecting its own output directly into the amplifier section or point.
So to test this theory of mine a signal needs to be put in, or the term is injected and traced to find what most likely is a faulty component or solder joint even. A loose or cracked anything can be the first thing to suspect from the antenna itself onward towards internal issues.

If you can get access to the antenna connector try a know working radio on the antenna and rule that out.
Sometime it is possible to put the defective radio right under a AM radio stations antenna.
The signal could penetrates the circuits, Like the old days of little crystal radio sets that I use when I was five years old.
It had only one ear plug headphone. I don’t remember if it even used a battery? It just needed a metal grid for an antenna. I used an under house air vent and set or leaned up against the side of our house, that had asbestos shingles siding and lead soldered copper pipes.

Learning things and not knowing things were blissfully simple and called the good ole days.

Now it’s all questionable but we are still kicking while suffering a new frustration of our technical world.

You are being taunted with a dilemma of learning to fix or buying a more “complicated” replacement.

In the electronics world, the technical repairman and consumers, started loosing ground as a CARETAKER, when the Quasar TV was produced with replaceable circuit boards, that just slid out and back in.


Phil

Thanx for reply but not sure if you know that the connection/connector from antenna to back of radio is fiber optic . So have to use Volvo radio to test . Used on EBay they are aprox. $50 to $60 bucks . Why waste $$ if the problem is with the antenna not the radio . Hence why I posted to see if there is a way to test seperately radio & antenna .

Hi again,

I hate to elude you to thinking I know what I’m talking about. I’m not all that savvy as I said before.
I’m stumbling along sorting out what I read on electronics.

Ok you have got me guessing with you.
Fiber optic is a light system. That’s why it says optic.
The fiber is a glass material. Flexible it must be, but it has no resistance or impurities like metal wires do.
Light travels at nearly the same speed as electricity or magnetism, if you don’t contain them very much. (:)
That is what is driving the super conductor and the physics of “matter” research by scientists.


I have never heard of an antenna capturing anything but a radio frequency (RF) carrier signal from a transmitter.
Radio, use to use, a sine wave at a high frequency. The digital signal that can be a another HF signal can ride on it on energy. That signal can be chopped top series of steps to make a pattern.
It’s Creating ones and zeros to create a code of “characters,” if you will, to trigger processing circuits to make synthesize sounds.
A readers optic eyes see code.
The same thing comes off the CD disc or a stick file with MP3 music.

Maybe they don’t use a sine wave anymore?
Maybe both are squared but I doubt the antenna knows no difference unless there some king of tuning done. Personally it’s probably a bunch of marketing hype, that you have to have a digital antenna.

When it comes to radio it needs to be compatible to other systems in use. That’s all.
One modifies the other in a Amplitude or Frequency modulation way, thus the AM and FM nomenclature still applies.

I can understand within wires or cables or even fiber optics using light pluses but radio is a different animal. That has always been served in analog terms up to this point.

You’re bringing up a whole new concept that I’m in the dark about and still in the shadows on the rest of it too so don’t take anything I say as being actually accurate.

It seems that if your CD player is already using a digital light source from the disc readers.
That’s is fed to the amplifier when processed in a PLL synthesizer. Now I’m too deep.

A digital input from the air waves through the antenna is something in haven’t thought about.
I was told that radio and TV still use the same antennas to transmit and receive but a processor is needed to change it into digital.
That’s why there were first set top boxes before they got small enough and cheap enough to get built-in to our products.
With this said, how do cell phones work using microwaves? It’s over my head.

So is there a problem in your head unit or the antenna?
Can it be something digital like you are thinking?
What is not working in a fiber optic manner?
Wouldn't there have to be a device to change things into a light wave of pulses for the pre-amplifier?

I have no answers except test the radio unit elsewhere on another antenna system or bring in a know for radio to that antenna.
When I saw those cables in the YouTube video says you have sorting out to do.
Noise canceling technology, CANBUS using up to 21 computers on some cars.
Well, if it’s more than a couple speakers, for each ear, I’m drummed out already!

Keep us posted how you work this one out.
I’m hoping for a loose connection or bad solder joint, if it has just quit suddenly.
Has it ever worked?

Phil

Hi again . In the trunk drivers side under covering is what I think is an amplifier . Has 2 connectors . One is electrical . Other is fiber optic . I can see a red glow from it . There are 2 connectors into rear of radio . Again one is electrical while other is fiber optic. Again I can see red glow . I popped by a car audio shop . They told me that indeed it probably is fiber optic . They also told me that they would not work on it as set up is too complicated. I have decided not to bother pursuing repairing the radio . The CD player works just fine and is good enough .