Mercedes Burford 2019

Hi. Can anyone who has a Mercedes based auto-sleeper fitted with the Mercedes MBUX system let me know what there reception is like on the radio. It has FM/DAB or AM but it only seems to tune into DAB or AM I cannot seem to find any FM stations, any help greatly appreciated. The Peugeot radio in our Corinium was far superior.

redcar56 wrote:Hi. Can anyone who has a Mercedes based auto-sleeper fitted with the Mercedes MBUX system let me know what there reception is like on the radio. It has FM/DAB or AM but it only seems to tune into DAB or AM I cannot seem to find any FM stations, any help greatly appreciated. The Peugeot radio in our Corinium was far superior.

Hi, sorry to hear about your radio we have the 2019 Mercedes based Burford and when away we listen every morning to radio 4 on FM, must say that's the only one we have listened to it all started when because we couldn't get TV.

ourannie wrote:

redcar56 wrote:Hi. Can anyone who has a Mercedes based auto-sleeper fitted with the Mercedes MBUX system let me know what there reception is like on the radio. It has FM/DAB or AM but it only seems to tune into DAB or AM I cannot seem to find any FM stations, any help greatly appreciated. The Peugeot radio in our Corinium was far superior.

Hi, sorry to hear about your radio we have the 2019 Mercedes based Burford and when away we listen every morning to radio 4 on FM, must say that's the only one we have listened to it all started when because we couldn't get TV.

Hi. Does yours show FM/DAB. AM, that’s what mine shows, but I can’t seem to find any FM stations in the list only DAB, how did you get FM

redcar56 wrote:

ourannie wrote:

redcar56 wrote:Hi. Can anyone who has a Mercedes based auto-sleeper fitted with the Mercedes MBUX system let me know what there reception is like on the radio. It has FM/DAB or AM but it only seems to tune into DAB or AM I cannot seem to find any FM stations, any help greatly appreciated. The Peugeot radio in our Corinium was far superior.

Hi, sorry to hear about your radio we have the 2019 Mercedes based Burford and when away we listen every morning to radio 4 on FM, must say that's the only one we have listened to it all started when because we couldn't get TV.

Hi. Does yours show FM/DAB. AM, that’s what mine shows, but I can’t seem to find any FM stations in the list only DAB, how did you get FM

Now your asking !!! me and technology don't get on but in the morning I'll go into Bazil Bourton and switch on then get back to you, all I can remember is tuning it in and then just switching on  by pressing the radio button in the morning.

Thank you

I've never owned a Sprinter, but you may find that the radio is like the (aftermarket) headunit in my T5. This has a "seamless transition" between DAB and FM, whereby it records the frequency band for a station for both DAB and FM as - in effect - just one station. When the DAB signal degrades too much, the headunit automatically switches to the same station on FM, and attempts to match up the timing of each so that there are no gaps/duplications. On mine this is fairly good, but not entirely reliable.

If yours has this and you live in a strong DAB area, you may find that it never has to "fallback" to FM.

The main weakness with this system is that there are still stations in the UK that are present on FM but not DAB - but presumably they are preparing for the situation where FM gets turned off (if that ever happens).

Roopert wrote:I've never owned a Sprinter, but you may find that the radio is like the (aftermarket) headunit in my T5. This has a "seamless transition" between DAB and FM, whereby it records the frequency band for a station for both DAB and FM as - in effect - just one station. When the DAB signal degrades too much, the headunit automatically switches to the same station on FM, and attempts to match up the timing of each so that there are no gaps/duplications. On mine this is fairly good, but not entirely reliable.

If yours has this and you live in a strong DAB area, you may find that it never has to "fallback" to FM.

The main weakness with this system is that there are still stations in the UK that are present on FM but not DAB - but presumably they are preparing for the situation where FM gets turned off (if that ever happens).

That’s does make sense now on how it’s supposed to work, we drove back from Dezices to Sevenoaks Kent tuned into BBC radio 2, normally a strong signal, and for the 3 1/2 journey we had “no signal” message up for 90% of the journey, the aerial lead has been checked and is fine, and the system has the last software.
Perhaps I’ll talk to Mercedes and see what they suggest, I would just replace with a decent DAB aerial but the unit aerial connection is via a big multi plug.

redcar56 wrote:Thank you

yes Roopert is right just been in ours and took picture and it it show FM/DAB as one station, then at the bottom it has BBC R4 FM as the station we are tuned into. We did tune in originaly using the arrows.

Roopert wrote:I've never owned a Sprinter, but you may find that the radio is like the (aftermarket) headunit in my T5. This has a "seamless transition" between DAB and FM, whereby it records the frequency band for a station for both DAB and FM as - in effect - just one station. When the DAB signal degrades too much, the headunit automatically switches to the same station on FM, and attempts to match up the timing of each so that there are no gaps/duplications. On mine this is fairly good, but not entirely reliable.

If yours has this and you live in a strong DAB area, you may find that it never has to "fallback" to FM.

The main weakness with this system is that there are still stations in the UK that are present on FM but not DAB - but presumably they are preparing for the situation where FM gets turned off (if that ever happens).

I sincerely hope they don't switch off FM. I've been a supporter of DAB since it first came out over 20 years ago when I rep!aced my Audi radio with a first generation Bluespot. However the roll out of transmitters seems to have been overtaken by the internet. We have 4 DAB radios in the house and they are all unreliable compared to FM. They are sensitive to weather and will only work near a window and it's a real faff to change channels. The future for me is internet radio both at home and on the move.
Rich..

RML wrote:
I sincerely hope they don't switch off FM. I've been a supporter of DAB since it first came out over 20 years ago when I rep!aced my Audi radio with a first generation Bluespot. However the roll out of transmitters seems to have been overtaken by the internet. We have 4 DAB radios in the house and they are all unreliable compared to FM. They are sensitive to weather and will only work near a window and it's a real faff to change channels. The future for me is internet radio both at home and on the move.
Rich..

It's a bit of a ghastly mess really. The drive to "monetise" terrestrial frequency bands has led to a system that is only barely adequate when reception is good, and degrades quickly out of range, but there is little incentive to add more transmitters or increase power.

There has also been a lack of joined-up thinking - so for example there is an excellent network of high-power TV transmitters and Freeview transmits loads of radio stations from these (more than 100 radio stations in my region). The quality is generally better than DAB - but what proportion of the population listens to radio via the Freeview network?

It all seems a bit poorly thought-out...

Living out in the sticks with poor DAB reception, I've occasionally listened to the radio on Freeview. But it seems a bit silly and a waste of power watching a logo bounce around on a massive TV screen when all I need is audio. If there's a way of switching off the screen I've yet to find it.
Al.