Bizarre radio problems
 

Here's one for you guys. I've been having this weird problem with my radio for about a year now. It's an 88 Lesabre. When I bought it, it had an aftermarket stereo installed(very old, very cheap) and an different antennae hooked up in the back window.

After a while it developed a problem where the tuner will wander up and down the frequencies, all the while displaying the same thing. This seems to happen more at the higher frequencies, and more when I'm farther from the towers. I swapped out the radio for the factory one and it worked fine for a couple weeks, then started doing the same thing. I took the radio from my other car and that only worked for a week before having problems. I replaced the entire antennae cable(the original wasn't being used, but was damaged in the trunk) and hooked up the factory antenna. Same problem. I rewired the ground wire, same problem. The voltage is good at the wires. This happens off and on, going over a bump sometimes fixes it, sometimes not.

Could the antennae problem have wrecked three stereos? What else could it be?

thanks,

I never heard of an antenna producing those types of problems. There may be a crossed wire somewhere that your missing. Re-check the wiring and see if that helps solve the issue. If it were the antenna, it would have cleared up when you swapped them.

No antenna should change a radio frequency on the radio. If you had steering controls I could understand this on the factory radio only, not an aftermarket though.

Best suggestion I could give you is to either 1, stop sitting on the remote :oops: or 2, ask the ghosts to stop flipping the station. Cause that problem carrying over into 2 radios is plain strange!

Factory stereo has no remote buttons, aftermarket one is the really old, pull out of the dash style. The wiring was never cut, they used an adapter. What wire could even cause the problems? The ground is now good, the only thing I was thinking would be the power wire. :(

Honestly I don't see how any wiring could do that to two different radios. Maybe test each wire on the connector (while unhooked from the radio) and see if there's power or ground anywhere you don't expect it.

After some online research, I found the basic color codes for most cars. Re-check the wiring harness to make sure each wire is hooked up correctly.

http://www.the12volt.com/request/request2.asp

Let us know how you make out. Im betting its a wire thats crossed somehwere. power antenna wire or something.

I'd believe possesion first. ;)

Really
Power to antenna
Sound to speaks
Ign
Batt
that's it...

Just to be clear, the radio station does not change, the same frequency is still displayed on the radio, but the tuner jumps around and cuts in and out.

l I checked all the wires, nothing out of the ordinary. Then I tried putting the radio back in my 87 and hooking it up, it doesn't work there either. So now I'm out two car stereos and I don't dare put another one in. What should I do? Is this repairable?

thanks,
-T

I doubt it is the stereos. But wouldn't want to condem the antennas as you mentioned two .

Are these stereos being destroyed?

If you were to install a new one would it work for a while?

I know the GM stereos are very touchy, and its very easy to fry the channels in the amp..

Also were you factory stereos the 5 Band EQ ETR stereo's like the Bonnevilles had with the CDM box( Removeable tuner amp section )on top of the unit? I have had several of these CDM boxes fail..

BTW what does the stock Head Unit look like?

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