Apparently the best place for a car antenna is vertically dead centre of the roof.
Shark fin antennas are quite often just for GPS and mobile phone with radio handled by an antenna in the rear glass plus sometimes other elements like even the boots lid depending on the manufacturer.
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I would like to see a specific DAB+ antenna for cars. Do they exist? Pictures?
Specifically for the metro DAB+ freqs 202 - 206 would be great.
Yes they exist & you donât have to look very far.
If your local Super Cheap/Autobarn/Autopro/etc. donât have any in stock, they can order them in.
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Picked up the Mazda today.
Am radio excellent compared to what I had before maybe partially due to the homemade aerial. Plus fm was great in my brief check.
Dab radio had a lot of trouble scanning the dab stations a bit annoying. It got ABC straight away, 9B got there after about 5 scans. 9A I could not get on my route between Paramatta to the northern beaches. Eventually at Terry Hills I got it. I think the radio needs a firmware update.
Fun superdigi broke up as expected a bit given the poorer error checking. Other than that station others outside (ZOO, gorilla etc) itâs pretty good.
The sound not as good as my old car due to I replaced the speakerâs in the other car. But the user interface is excellent.
Will test more.
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Really, it shouldnât have taken that long for the unit to scan in the stations, particularly if you had tried it in 5 different locations.
I did my first scan in my Focus at Rehead, 100 kms north of Sydney (straight line), though I was up on a hill.
But it still picked up everything first time.
Yeah it only my persistent that got it going. Most people would have given up.
I did download a firmware update, itâs not on the latest version. I would have installed it if I did not get 9A. Now I will ask the dealer to do it with the 1000 k service.
Well done on the purchase too!
Which model 3 did you get?
Was it the SP25 with Bose audio by chance?
Nahh just the Maxx. The Bose one outside my budget.
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Iâve only ever had a failed scan once. Where it didnât pick up I think the Brisbane 1 list. It shouldnât happen too often.
Yes itâs something I will raise with Mazda and get them to update the firmware, check the aerial etc.
I enjoy the iPod integration with the car. Itâs so easy to use. I am starting to listen to less digital radio as I clean up my old Cd collection and put in iTunes.I still prefer Waze to the inbuilt GPS.
Reception has been OK, i drove from hurstville to the hills district and it did lose too much of a beat on NTS digital.
My question is does the text work for your dab car radio? My one does not work.
Do you mean that you donât get the 2nd line display?
Yes, I get that on my Ford Focusâs DAB+ radio.
Yeas the text works on mine. 4KQ on DAB even shows news headlines intermittently with song and artist.
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WSFM here in Sydney has something similar: Re, news headlines mixed in intermittently with song/artist info on the scrolling text & slideshow images. Itâs probably a standard thing for the ARN âPure Gold/Classic Hitsâ stations on DAB+
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i also have a car radio
You know what, that will probably become a rarity within 10-15 years.
People will probably use streaming via smartphones for radio like type entertainment by the mid 20s as the norm (telcos will probably include unmetered streaming by then and we will have iPhone 17s and be on 10G mobile networks 
).
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Yeah apart from the drive show, I mostly use Spotify in the car now.
I would need to change my mobile plan so I had more data per month then I could stream Pandora,Spotify or maybe Apple Music while in the car
Yeah maybe. I might be the minority but even with a whiz bang streaming interface in the car I still choose DAB over Pandora/Spotify in the car. I might stream BBC Radio occasionally or Absolute 80s but I find Pandora leaves me a bit cold.
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The Google Play Music, iHeartRadio, Pandora and Spotify apps are data free on Optus prepaid mobile and on some Optus postpaid mobile. I often use Google Play Music and iHeartRadio in my car.
Indeed, you need to activate the setting online first though. I switched carriers from Optus recently though.