It could be expecting to ground through the bodywork - which isn't going to happen with an ali lid. Some of them expect some juice injected either down a separate wire (sometimes the power antenna wire but usually separate) or phantom power style down the signal cable - depends whether it's an amplified aerial or not.
Possibly yes
When I built it I spoke to my wife about it first (because she's an Aspie like me and hates foreign noise) and we sort of agreed that I could play Heart FM as we both found it quite relaxing. So TBH it's already performing its job admirably without actual radio reception. I had it on all day yesterday and have had it on since I got up. I probably could have just bought a bluetooth to RCA adapter but I wanted it to play CDs too (I still buy them) and the next experiment is to see if I can stream my FLAC collection from my phone via Bluetooth using VLC or another FLAC player. I would rather have the music on the phone than the stereo itself, more flexible.
We also did not have a DVD player in here. My wife bought us a multi region player (because I spent ten years out in the USA and we both have loads of DVDs) but it's AV outputs and the TV didn't support it. Again, could have bought adapters ETC but I guess I am old fashioned and just wanted a stereo in here
It sounds fantastic. Had to practically turn the bass down to zero on it though because the 12" long throw sub liked it a little too much
but yeah, got it all sorted now
I really want to build something similar for my mother who has been asking me for a stereo/radio but the thing is she would never ever understand the Android like front end. It took us nearly a year to teach her how to use Facebook on a tablet we bought for her.