Well I finally got my tuner built and Hijack installed and I had a couple of issues.

1) First problem is that the tuner seems to lose the signal a little bit while driving. If I am driving along every now and then it is almost like the station is not coming in good and then it comes back. The signal strength stays at full. It does not happen if I am sitting still. Is this normal? It happens on all stations. I did schofiel thing on the antenna ground where it is soldered to the tuner module and then to the hole for the tuner tab.

2) I installed Hijack and was having issues with it. Whenever I enter Hijack menu and make say a couple of adjustments on the bass or treble the display gets frozen but I continue to get sound. I have so far only experienced it while listening to the tuner and not an mp3. Basically the Empeg is non-responsive to button presses and the remote and the display just has the bass or treble reading (I have only seen it while trying to adjust these 2 parameters). Also if the display is frozen and I turn my truck off the player stays on and does not go in to standby mode

3) Also another issue on Hijack. Whenever I make adjustment with the bass and treble I get a cracking noise. It is very evident when listening to the tuner. Is this normal?

Sorry if these questions have been asked and answered but I searched and could not really find anything.

Well I think all my Hijack issues have gone away. I am still having the slight issue with my tuner though. It's kind of hard to describe but if I am sitting still it sounds fine. However when I start moving it sounds like it is starting to lose the station and then it comes back. The sound quality goes down slightly and then it comes back. Kind of like on the older radiios that had the stereo symbol and what it would sound like when it would go away and the come back. Anyone have any ideas?

It's gotta be a bad antenna connection. No matter how much you think you did a perfect job of it, that's what your description clearly points to.

Cheers

Thanks! That's what I was thinking but wanted to get some feedback from the experts before I have to pull the tuner box out.

Perfect job.....no where close. I was impressed that it worked the first time. It was for sure a fun project and neat to be able to tell people that I built the radio part. Next will be the buttons and adding the light button kit.

I may have spoke a little to soon on the Hijack issues. I had to drive for a couple of hours today for business and I had some strange things happen. First when I first put my player in the sled and turned on the truck a couple of error messages came up but went away. I did not get a chance to write them down Also my player paused a song by itself and skipped to the next song. Also my frozen screen happened again when I was adjusting the bass/treble.

In reading up on my symptoms, that's what it sounds like as well. However I started having issues when I switched over to Hijack and v3.00-alpha11. I may try and revert back to v2.01-final and see if the problems remain.

But you are probably right, remember this was purchased second hand (maybe even third, or forth, etc...) You and several others helped me get it up and running as it appeared the previous owner did not know what they were doing.

You should be able to sort out whether the drive is good or bad, by grabbing the smartctl binary (there must be a FAQ link for it somewhere) and getting it to read out the drive logs. Assuming the drive had SMART enabled before the failures, that is. And the tool can also do a surface scan (-t long) of the drive.

Other drive troubles, the most common variety, come from IDE header solder joints, and loose crimps on the IDE cables.

-ml

I should have read a little more on the PCATS Tuner kits - build modifications to ensure good signal reception thread. The discription at the bottom by Rezolution is exactly what I am seeing as well.

Here was Rezolution description:
My symptoms are:

Tuner shows full strength and reception of the FM station is pretty decent, but RDS light never stays on for more than 2 seconds - sound quality seems to fade in and out of "stereo"

Tuner shows full strength on weak FM signals (hear some music but very static)

Tuner shows 3 bars on FM stations with absolutely no reception at all - all static.

Tuner shows full strength on AM on every frequency regardless of actual signal presence (very bad reception on any AM station).

I have not taken the module apart yet, but i don’t see how having it shorted out or the core not connected at all could cause these problems...


Now for mine I did try to unplug the antenna connection while listening to a station and the station went away with the antenna unplugged. I have read several post were people reported the same problem but have yet to find one that says "the problem was..." or "I solved it by...."

Has there been any resolution to the poor signal quality issue?

and you're absolutely sure that the pinouts on the connector are all correct, and that the pinouts on the connector on the empeg sled are all correct?

I will triple check but I would say yes. I had read when building the tuner to double check these and did my best to make sure these were correct. I left off the power antenna connection as I do not need it. Since it would not be connected I would assume that this would be ok, also instructions said I could leave it off if it is not going to be used?

So then if there are connections that are crossed then the tuner would still work?

I think the best way to describe my issue that it sounds like it goes in and out of "stereo".

I am going to redo my antenna connection on the PCB and while I am at just going to go ahead and replace my antenna cable since they are inexpensive.

Maybe I have a cold solder joint on the antenna???

Have a look at the quality of your signal connections, from end to end.

Also, check if you have got the antenna properly powered if it is active - this kit does not supply a feed to the antenna (silent power feed). You have to do that yourself.