I have had really poor radio reception for years. I thought I just lived in places with bad radio. Turns out, I have a problem. My dad owns an A4 too (01 B5). We had our cars in the same spot. He got over 20 channels. I got 4. We started messing around with the wires behind the radio. Here is what we found:

1) The radio will not turn on unless seated into the bracket in some capacity. Is this normal?
2) We somehow played with the wires so that I could get all the radio stations. Seated the radio, then I drove off. I shut the car off 5 minutes later. Turned it back on - Only those 4 radio stations again. We think it has to do with grounding the radio, but we have no idea what to do now. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Thanks!

 

1. Radio chassis needs a ground, so yes that's normal.
2. I'm pretty sure '02 is the same, but so many things about the '02 were changed on the '03 that it may not be the case... anyhow, I know on >'03 models there were tons of people on the other forums with antenna problems. The antenna is part of the rear window assembly, and there is a very-thin ribbon-likeconnection point that is prone to cracking. It happens on a many B6 models; do a search on the the other forums and you'll see it's common to have poor reception when this occurs.
My advice; ditch terrestrial and go satellite, lol. How anyone still listens to the crap on AM/FM baffles me, lol.

 

I never had an issue on my old 02. In fact, when I put an AVIC-D3 in there, the reception had gotten worse. I gotta agree with what bustanut said about satellite though. I got XM a few months back, and never looked back.

 

yeah, i had the same problem on my old 02' a4 sedan. i too thought the signals in my area sucked b/c it worked a little better in like big cities and stuff. then i got my new 02' avant, and the radio is crystal clear everywhere so it mustve just been cracked like bustanut said. sorry dude that sux, ive been there its super annoying