Awesome choice. I too own a PD i30. The shark fin antenna on AM is fine. I found it has superior reception to the whip that was on my Holden Cruze. For example I can pick up 747 Toowoomba in Northern Brisbane easily.
FM reception is on par with every other car I’ve had reception wise.
One thing that irritates me is the equaliser is one setting for everything. While you find the settings might be ok for DAB, it will make FM and AM sound bad. And v.v. AM sounds like it’s programmed for a narrow bandwidth so will always sound horrible.
I’m thinking of upgrading the speakers and putting in a kicker box for a bit more punch. I’d be interested in what you think of the stereo in it.
Re: car antennas. The obvious shark fin may not be the only antenna on a car. Some companies also use the boot lid and other car parts to supplement reception. I recall an ep of Top Gear where one Mercedes had 12 (IIRC) antennas with diversity tuning to select the best reception.
With AM on the new car it’s just weaker overall and a lot more electrical noise. I used to get 792 RN all the way to Gympie clearly but it starts to get noisy around Nambour now. I know there’s an RN on FM near the Sunshine Coast but I always have trouble remembering what frequency it’s on and can’t be bothered stuffing around. I wish ABC woke use RDS on the FM stations
However on the bright side I’m now thinking FM might be marginally better DX wise and DAB is the same.
The stock radio in my new i30 is pretty good. I can hear 2NUR Newcastle in flat conditions as well as clear reception of Orange 101.9/102.7/104.3, weak 105.1/105.9/106.7. 2BS 95.1 is no problem next to Smooth and is mostly listenable whilst driving around in my southern Sydney suburb. The radio was also able to clearly resolve both 88.0 Penrith and 88.1 2RDJ.
I haven’t thoroughly tested MW but it seems pretty sensitive, with plenty of skywave on the band before 1600 LT. Received strong TAB on 891; probably an image of 2KY rather than Innisfail.
The Eurovox Radio I posted an image of earlier had diversity tuning with inputs for 2 antennas. The second one was as you say supposed to be mounted horizontally on the rear window.
as for my next car it wont matter for me as long as it goes reversing camera then i be happy . as for the car radio that dont matter as we dont have dab here in regional victoria and i doubt by next year which will hopefully be the time i will be getting another car
MW sensitivity on my i30 is pretty good; it’s a pity the bandwidth is so narrow though. I was able to receive both 1242 3GV and 1566 3NE very clearly at 1500 yesterday via winter afternoon skywave.
I’ve got 12 presets and can mix AM/FM/DAB. I’ve done some tweaking (eg. Dumped Double J) and now have:
Smooth DAB
Easy Hits DAB
97.3 80s DAB
97.3 90s DAB
4KQ DAB
Triple M GHD DAB
Triple M Classic Rock DAB
Triple M Aussie DAB
River 94.9 FM
Breeze 92 FM
Rebel 905 FM
Radio National DAB
So only 3 of the 12 are FM, the rest DAB and I have none of the 4 main FM stations preset…
I’ve come across that too mate