well.. i have really been enjoying me GS ownership so far but the only niggling thing is Radio reception..

its awful, can only really get Radio 1 on strong signal and would much prefer Kiss 100 as no scott "the muppet" mills on the way home!

kiss 100 is weak as hell even though my navara could get it as far as sittingbourne on strong signal, this is also making the music sound toneless when i do get any signal.

do they do a booster pack?

also what would be involved in fitting a roof mounted sharkfin arial?

Is your aerial working correctly?

Does it change length as you change stations?

if your going to change your system, theres no point trying to sort this out.
my aerial use to change lengths as i skipped through stations, but since installed my pioneer system, it does not. reception is good wherever.

What do you mean change lengths? Does it actually get longer or shorter depending on the strength of the station? What a bizarre feature, I can understand it coming down when the CD player's on, but that's surely overkill

yeah it was on my 1992 LS400 and the same on the mk2 GS, if you change radio stations using the preset memory buttons, you can hear the aerial going up and down.

yes radio reception is awful. I could barely hold onto Kiss 100 with my mk2 GS for more than a minute or so, and that was even in North London!

The sound quality of the radio has been "tuned for UK spec cars", apparently to make it sound warmer. The difference between radio and CD on the GS is incredible.

Never heard of a booster pack.

It's not awful. If it is, there is a fault - I'd suggest taking it to an ICE specialist and having it checked out.

Reception on mine is solid on all frequencies, in fact rather better than many cars I've had. So it can't be inherently bad - is the aerial even plugged in to the back of the radio properly?

yeah even on a mk1 gs the aerial alters size to the signal , on a sad note radio 2 is 5 inch shorter in length than radio 1

Mike,

You have a GS430. Those came with Mark Levinson stereos, compared with the Pioneer setup on 99 GS300s. Totally different pieces of kit.

A fix has been discussed on LOC before

Improving sound quality on GS FM radio

It isn't as sophisticated as it may sound to start with. There is an extra feed from the head unit that switches to 12V when the frequency is below 96 or on AM. If the frequency is above 96 (and not on AM) then it is at 0V. So there are only two length it switches between to make a closer match to the wavelengths being received. As with Shake, my aftermarket head unit doesn't have this extra feed so it can't do the change in length automatically. Hasn't made any difference to reception that I can notice though. It could always be faked with a switch if you wanted I guess.

Is that right? I know the Nav models were Mark Levinson, but I thought I saw Pioneer stickers on mine when I pulled it out to fit my bluetooth car kit for the phone. Must admit I don't remember properly though...

certainly havent noticed the radio going up n down.. but then i only either listen to 98.8 or 100fm.

Have definately started listening to CDs a lot more though...

Thanks for all the contributions on this, not sure if i will take off thos capacitors though..

might just look at fitting a new head unit with navigation.. are there any direct wiring loom adaptors availiable for the MK2 GS? or is it another case of remaking a bypass wiring loom?

Mark Levinson was only from 2001 in the UK.

You are best off looking at the US forums for the GS. There are NUMEROUS examples of aftermarket head units with nav on clublexus.