Car Stereos: am/fm static, 2006 nissan altima, antenna amplifier

Question
Hi i just bought a new aftermarket radio which is the pioneer avh3100 for my 2006 nissan altima, the dvd player, and ipod work great but when i use the am/fm its has alot of static. I can still here music but it is mostly static.  And i never used to have static with my old radio so i was wondering if maybe theres another part i can buy to fix this problem

Answer
Hi Dennie,

I don't think you need an additional part, but I think an important step in the installation may have been overlooked.

Your car's AM/FM antenna is imbedded in the rear glass.  Like many vehicles with in-glass aerials, there is an antenna amplifier built into the system.  The antenna amplifier needs to be activated by the new head unit.

To activate the antenna, it's necessary to power the activation wire in the factory radio plug.  If you purchased an adapter harness to connect your after-market deck to the Nissan radio plug, there should be a blue wire in the adapter harness.  This blue wire needs to be connected to the blue/white wire at the back of the Pioneer head unit.  

This is something that's very commonly overlooked, even by professional installers.  It's definitely the first thing to check whenever you have reception problems after installing a new head unit into a vehicle with an in-glass AM/FM antenna.

Hope this helps!

Brian