FM Radio does not work
I have a Nolan N104 and a Scalarider G9 and where I live they both pick up FM radio perfectly fine The Noland is a little better than the G9 but they both work on at least 4 stations. The 20S however gives me nothing. Even getting much closer to the transmitter I get very little and have to turn my head just to get a very slight signal. The speaker cable goes up over the top of my helmet and I even tried with the little side aerial up but no dice.
The FM radio on the 20S is not only extremely poor but is in fact useless to me and is one of the reasons I purchased it. Not the main reason but an important one.
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As I posted on Oct. 23, my replacements #1409xxxxx were received. After installing them in my helmets I turned on the radio and received stations in my house from the Jersey shore that I can't get clearly on my home stereo. Confirmed it even further during a ride Saturday when I rode from NYC thru NJ, lower upstate NY & Pennsylvania. The FM reception is 100% better, with the clarity that I would have expected from the original units. Way to go Sena!
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must of been a great ride. NY state, north Jersey, and PA. autumn at its best.
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With all the talk about the FM radio performance, I rode around my suburb of Dallas yesterday, listening to FM. I'm about 20 air miles from downtown and at least 30 miles from most of the transmitting towers (on the opposite side of downtown from me. I was surprised at the FM radio reception. It was much better than my first try 3 months ago; now with the new 20S and routing of the speaker wire over the top. Does anyone k now for sure if the speaker wire is the FM antenna?
I thumbed through over a dozen stations, all crystal clear. For me, the FM radio is probably as good as it's going to get.
Ken
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Ken, is your new serial number the 1409xxxx?
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Yes, Ashwin. It is. My friends and I waited an addition 2 months after being told that we can get replacements . . . . so that we could get the latest hardware improvements that we could. Then, waited an additional 2 weeks when told that they were back-ordered. We feel that we got the latest rendition that they have produced.
Ken
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Thanks, that was a smart move. I think I will try the wiring reroute to the top of the helmet, and if that does not work - then try to get an RMA (this would then be my 2nd). I will probably wait until Feb/Mar (so they can work out some more bugs.
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Victor - Yes I read both pages. Fortunately I have a pretty good background in this stuff. Anytime you are depending on the speaker wire to provide you with reception the reception will usually be marginal compared to a dedicated antenna. If Sena is adding a dedicated antenna...that's great. I know mine is marginal due to the fact that I can run my hand near the speaker wire and reception immediately improves. I have now run the separate bare wire across the top inside of the helmet, from front to back, crossing the speaker wire and taped it in. Reception was noticeably improved right off the bat. By running the wire cross wise I have also partially eliminated the directional tendency of the speaker wire running only cross ways over the top of the helmet.
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I sent mine back and got a replacement and yes the FM is 1000% better than my original. But 1000% of nothing is still not good. Sure it now works where as before it did not work at all but it only works with strong signals. My Nolan and G9x can pick up the signal much further than the Sena and they very rarely fade. Even with a strong signal a small turn of the head and sometimes the signal is gone. Yes I have my speaker cables up over the top and always have. The only reason I am not sending them back is because the sound otherwise is far better than anything else I have heard and also I am picking up a BMW R1200RT this week which has an onboard radio with a much larger aerial.
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After opening a ticket 10 days ago, RMA'ed mine in. The RMA process was fast, but I haven't heard back from them the last few days on if they will repair or replace the unit.
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I just posted the issues that I have been dealing with (http://support.sena.com/entries/58688614-Sena-I-love-you-but-your-making-it-difficult-) and at first I felt bad thinking that maybe I was just being too picky but after seeing that I am not the only one frustrated by to 20s I have realized that all of us are only asking for the device to do what it says it can. FM Radio - BROKE, Music Sharing - ONLY WITH 20s (when were they going to tell us that), Touch for commands - When it wants to work etc etc.
Another member made a comment on here that I thought was spot on. Where is Sena on this forum letting us know where they are in the process of fixing this and what has caused all these issues. All we seem to get is a operator like response telling us to submit a ticket.
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Well...I have now run a separate wire cross ways on my girlfriends helmet as well. See my earlier posts for what I did. The reception vastly improved immediately as well in this second helmet. Now, when I run my hand around the unit or the speaker/antenna wire the reception stays the same instead of immediately improves. And.....I don't have to send mine in !
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I had the same experience with putting my hand near the helmet speaker wire and reception improving on the original 20S that you sent me. I'd thought about loosely coupling a copper wire to the speaker wire (by simply wrapping it around it a few times) and leaving a foot or so on each end tucked into the helmet shell in various arcs and directions to provide a more omni-directional receive antenna. But then the replacement 20S came in and the reception is quite good. I don't know what improvement they made in the hardware, but the new 20S is a bunch better. Maybe it would be GREAT if I did my additional antenna wire trick.
Ken
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That THEY sent me.
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Just got a 1409 20S to replace my 1405. The noise with earbuds is resolved but FM is still performing poorly. I have two stations I test with. One is at 100.3 MHz (transmitter 100,000 W) and it's pretty good. The other is at 91.3 MHz (transmitter 3500 W) and it might as well not be broadcasting... I get nothing, just static. Both stations are clear in my car and with the Creative Zen MP3/FM player I used to use on my bike.
At this point I think I'll just live with it. The clear station at 100.3 is the one I listen to 99% of the time. Tomorrow I'll test with an extra wire in the helmet to see if it helps the weaker station.
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@Ken, what version did you receive?
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Not sure if recent update 1.3 had anything to do with it but my 20s is now receiving stations that it didn't before. The ones that came in before are much clearer too.
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I believe the Sena product to be of immense benefit to the motorcycle riding community. It is the tool that allowed me to get my wife back on the bike again after a really bad crash.
Now she rides herself with me guiding her and supporting her via the intercom. A three way chat whilst riding with the kid on my duo_biking is a family affair now. So thanks.Main reason for my upgrade to 20S(from a dual SMH10R) setup was the FM radio for daily commute.
And yes, it can't hold a clear sound even on the main Belgian stations_which any mobile phone can.
The antenna is just not up to the task_plain and simple.Sena, please fix the antenna issue and make the 20S as perfect as it should be.
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last week I have placed the wires from the two speakers above my head, before they were in the back of the helm.
Now the reception is mutch better but still not 100%.
Can someone else also try that?
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Marc - Do more reading of the comments that have been posted.
You can also run another separate wire over the top of your helmet as I have done and one more subscriber. This helps out more than anything else so far. Running your wires over the top of your helmet was a good step though.
Poor reception is the fault of a non-dedicated antenna wire. Sena is trying to use the existing speaker wire as an FM antenna. Not good. By adding a second wire across the speaker wire you just re-routed your issue may turn into a non-issue and you don't have to go through the pains of having to send your stuff back in!
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Any youtube tutorials...?
c'mon Sena we need this_BAD!0 -
Casey Lynn - it was because a comment that I moved the speakerwire to the top of the helmet.
If you connected an additional wire, were did you connected this wire to?
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I ran my speaker wire across the top of the helmet then took a piece of wire and ran it perpendicular, from front to back. I looped it around the speaker wire once where the two wires cross and taped it down at both ends. The wire does not actually connect, it works through induction to the speaker wire. Works pretty well, notice less multi-path interference than before.
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No YouTube tutorial needed.
1. Run your existing speaker wires over the top of your helmet.
2. Take another piece of wire (any wire will do but the thinner the better) and run it across the top of the helmet from front to back, crossing the speaker wires. Tape this in place.
3. Go Ride!
As long as Sena (and Cardo) continue to get away with building this stuff with no dedicated speaker wire the reception will be marginal. They should step up to the plate and fix it but I doubt they will ever even admit it.
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Whoops, meant to say no dedicated antenna wire in the last sentence.........
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Same problem with my unit - poor reception - in South Africa. I am going to try the cross wire setup to see if it helps, but even if it does improve to the level of my Interphone F5 (which was better than my Cardo), it still isn't great. My new trick is just to use streaming radio (TuneIn app) from my phone via Bluetooth - always have perfect radio sound on my commute and I am not worried about longer distances (where LTE isn't widely available) as I tend to listen to music when on those trips anyway.
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I just picked up a 20S and love many of the features including radio. First, I updated it to firmware v.1.3. Radio works for me in the Seattle area, but after 20-30 minutes and when I change radio stations via the phone button, the station sounds scrambled and I'm unable to recover or change stations. Basically to me like if it were a computer, the 20S crashes if thats the correct terminology. I have to power off the unit then power on to recover.
Is this happening to anyone else? I don't imagine this is normal so I'm curious if this what people are saying FM radio does not work. I haven't tinkered with the settings and I'm assuming are using defaults. Is there something I need to try like RDS AF?
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My problem is similar to Robert v. At first I have pretty decent luck with the radio, but after a few minutes the signal is so scrambled it cannot be listened to. At this point, changing stations doens't help - if the unit will even respond. The only solution is to turn the FM off and back on. That clears it up, but only for a few minutes before the cycle repeats. I have the RDS set to 'on' as that feature worked wonderfully on my two prior Cardo Rider units. I have to say the FM on both of those units worked superbly. FM was/is a very important feature as I use it for traffic reports during rush hour commuting. The Sena unit is NOT reliable - if I have to fiddle with it to get it to work while attempting to maneuver safely in traffic that's no bueno. I will say that the firmware updates did accomplish some good things in other areas and I was pleased with those strides. Thanks to Sena for their continued efforts.
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Have you tried turning off the automatic RDS station change? I found that keeping this option enabled does things like that. Hope this helps Wilhelm 0 -
I just received my exchange 20S sets from the dealer here in Singapore (Regina Specailties) BUT I was warned NOT TO install the latest update to the version 1.3 or he will no longer honor the warranty anymore. Now the ambient function and share music functions are there but the radio reception can't pick up a few local radio stations any more. The previous sets radio were so much better. Not sure if it was the upgrading of the software helps in the reception. But these exchange sets are still in software version 1.2 and so far my only complaint will be the radio reception.
May I have your view on this? What should I do? To install the latest software to version 1.3 or what? This set proof that my former sets ambient feature and music sharing feature were not working correctly and now I will need to deal with another problem with the exchanged 20S.0 -
How can a dealer forbid you to upgrade the firmware ? It's like buying a car, but you cant fill up the gastank. I don't know the law in Singapore, but you'd better go back and let HIM do the upgrade then. You just can't forbid your cursomers to upgrade their purchases !
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