Pilkington windscreen aerial wiring

[paulsco]

Hi,
I have a Pilkington heated windscreen which also has an aerial in it.
The aerial filament’s go up the centre of the windscreen in two separate lines, which individually go off to ether side of the windscreen at the top. They are not connected to each other in any way and the connectors at the bottom of the screen are two individual spades.
Does anybody know how I should connect this to the radio aerial cable?

I am assuming that one spade would be connected to the outside shield wire on the aerial cable and the other to the centre core.

Has anybody done this or have a better idea?

Thanks,

Paul











Thanks,

Paul

[288gto]

Hi Paul,

Dampmansteve, a member on here had one of these fitted so might be worth asking him. His had the heated front screen as well so if I remember , there was some confusion about the various connections.
When I spoke to Pilkington 12 months ago, their screen aerials weren't DAB compatible but they were looking to sort that so worth checking.

Simon

[paulsco]

Hi Simon,

Thanks for your response.

Yes I think I was involved in the earlier discussion. I will contact Dampmansteve if he doesn't see this.

I bought my windscreen some time ago, so I wouldn't think it is DAB compatible.

My radio isn't DAB ether, so this won't be a problem, but I was wondering if I might still need some sort of booster.

Paul

[johnetype]

Connect the radio aerial wire as you suggest. If reception on FM is good, then leave it. If you find reception poor or RDS doesn't work then you can try adding a booster.

If you were to want DAB, then DAB is a different game. DAB radios have an additional, independent aerial feed which certainly would need a DAB specific booster but wouldn't work anyway with the way the wires are laid out in the Pilkington screen you've illustrated.

[TheDampMan]

Hi Paul
I have the same antenna wires in my screen however mine is not heated.
In the end I did not use the antenna wires.

At the time I emailed Nick Gardiner (Commercial Manager Pilkington Classics) Nick.Gardiner@nsg.com
Below is his reply
That’s one of our Antenna screens, they are to connect up to the radio, you will need some kind of conversion from our terminal to the spade though – im not sure how that being done but I know E Type UK are doing it so perhaps they can advise?

It may be worth contacting him again?
Steve.

[paulsco]

Thank you John and Steve.

I have sent an email off to Nick as suggested. If I do not get a satisfactory response I will try John's suggestion.

I have been looking at boosters on the internet, I can't find anything with spade connections, although I think I can get around this if necessary.

I may try to contact E Type UK as well, but in my experience most restoration companies are reluctant to give out information.

Regards,

Paul

[johnetype]

I don't believe you'll find a booster with spade connectors so you'll have to improvise.

One option is this: eBay item number 303044215316, where you'll have to open the box in the middle and replace the "wings" coming out of the box with connections to the two wires from your screen.

Second option is this: eBay item number 372680510015, where you attach a short length of aerial cable ending in the plug that goes into a radio to your screen and then plug that plug into this amplifier.

Either way, for technical reasons you want the booster/amplifier as near to your screen connections with the shortest length of cable rather than at the back of whatever radio you're using.

[paulsco]

Hi,

I just thought I would update you on this to help others who may be in the same situation.

I contacted Nick Gardiner at Pilkington. He was very nice and cooperative, but was unable to advise me how exactly the aerial should be connected. He did say that they no longer use spade terminals and he said he would send me a couple of new terminals to see if they would help. I received the terminals as promised, picture attached.







It appears from this that each filament in the screen is attached to a separate aerial cable and in this case they appear to be DAB??
I was under the impression that each aerial cable needed to be earthed, but this set up would only support connection to the inner pin connection, so created more questions than answers.

I bought an amplifier as mentioned by John, but I also bought a cheap telescopic aerial, so that I could try out all permutations.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, I decided that what I had in the screen was in fact two aerials, presumably to get a wide signal and each spade was to be connected to the centre core of the aerial cable; no earth as such.
I bought a male aerial terminal and connected both spades to the central pin (and the earth cable mentioned further down to the outside skin).




(This is a picture shows the set up, but in this case it is still connected to the amplifier)



I tuned the radio to a weak station and tried this with the booster and seperately with the telescopic aerial. The booster gave too much feed back and the telescopic aerial was no better than the screen aerial. One further improvement was obtained by earthing the male terminal I had bought to a point near the spades.

So… I have simply connected the new male connector to an extension aerial cable to the radio, no amplifier and so far it seams to work fine.

The car is in the garage and still not finished, so I cannot comment on how it will perform out on the road though.

Paul