Upgrading to DAB

[torN]

For over a year now I have been enjoying my Golf Mk5, nice solid car and a decent daily driver.

However the only big issue that is still outstanding is the in car entertainment, it is seriously lacking.

The stock headunit is a RCD 310, so a straight up FM / AM radio with CD player and an underwhelming Ipod 30pin dock in the arm rest (i don't own and don't plan to own an Ipod).

So for the past 6 months I have been scouring the net for a decent replacement as I do not want to settle for a single DIN unit and I have come across the large selection of Android double din headunits on ebay (eonon, pumkin etc.). These players look excellent (like stock) and have a decent amount of reviews. However in order to future proof the headunit I would like to have DAB and none of the current android units have this feature.

The next hurdle - converting the aerial to DAB, reviews of aerials that sit on the windscreen are not great and I have found articles and shops mention a complete replacement of the aerial is the best bet (I currently have a beesting).

So my question is, has anyone out there done something similar to their car? Do you have any solutions to get past the non-dab option while using an android headunit (is there some sort of app out there for this?).

Do you currently own a android headunit?

 

[Six6siX]

I've gone DAB from normal FM but I retrofit the OEM option parts to achieve it - so a little different to what you want to do really. But I can provide some input based on what I found when I looked into it all.

I'd guess that if the Android units don't have DAB tuners, you will have to rely on an external DAB tuner going via AUX-IN or via local FM transmitter. The issue here is that there may not be much control over the unit from the headunit itself (think phone app, separate remote control etc).

If you can find a headunit that has a DAB tuner built in or that has a DAB add-on that can be controlled centrally, that's much better. You could even look into retrofitting the OEM option (if it exists!) but that could get expensive.

If you've got your heart set on an Android one that doesn't have a DAB option, you may just be best using an unlimited data connection and a streaming audio service or streaming radio app...

As far as the aerial is concerned, the best route is going to depend on what is currently in the car - particularly if there is an antenna amplifier present. If you have an OEM beesting, its quite likely you have an antenna amplifier but you'd need to check.

If there is no antenna amplifier, you can probably get away with using a 'splitter' that will split, filter and maybe amplify the signal to provide both analogue and digital frequencies to the headunit/add-on tuner etc. This means you won't need any additional aerials.

You generally can't split an already amplified analogue radio signal since the digital frequencies will have been filtered out or lost. So if the car has an antenna amplifier and you want to use the original antenna, you will need to replace it with the OEM part that contains the DAB amplifier component (if such a part exists for your car - i.e. if DAB was an OEM option).

Alternatively, to save messing with the existing equipment you can use a separate DAB antenna for the DAB tuner/headunit input - e.g. internal windscreen mounted, external magnetic, etc etc. Reception varies depending on the type, where and how it's mounted etc - see www.dabonwheels.co.uk

HTH