What causes week receive??

Your RF gain control needs to be turned all the way up to be able to receive signals and if you are on one of the HF bands like 40 meters or any HF band the squelch control needs to be all the way off! You do not use squelch on HF! When on VHF or UHF then you would rotate the squelch control just to the point that the background noise stops and go no further. Higher squelch settings will only block weak signals and your radio will be deaf! Squelch control rotated just to the point the background noise stops! NO SQUELCH ON HF. Turn the squelch all the way off on HF!

The low signal may be due to loose connection of the antenna cable

FM Detector/demodulation issue. These radios have a problem in this department. I have had a few come through work that were on mine sites and no longer receive or scan. On the display it will show the signal bars fully lit as if there is a strong signal, but no RF is heard. The giveaway is being able to hear button press beeps and alike but no signal noise is ever heard.

If the unit is still under warranty send it back and have it repaired. If no longer under warranty, then it's spare parts.

If I understand your setup, you've connected the receiver antenna terminal to the output of the antenna amplifier. If this is true, I'd suggest trying the receiver using a plain old FM dipole antenna (available at Radio Shack and other stores) or even just a piece of wire hooked to the antenna terminal. You should be able to pick up some local FM stations then.

What might be happening is that the FM is being filtered out by the amplifier. Some amps made mainly as a TV signal booster have an FM trap designed to block the FM broadcast band. In the analog broadcast days, the FM band was right near the sound part of a TV signal, and the trap was there to prevent interference. It may be filtering out your FM band.It may also be possible that you're just overloading the FM antenna input with the amplified signal. Sometimes a signal can be too strong. Using a simple wire antenna will let you test the receiver by itself.

Other than connecting an antenna you shouldn't have to do any setup for FM reception. If you still get no stations at all when using a simple antenna, then the receiver may need service. But I doubt Circuit City would have sold a floor model that was defective, even at the very end, unless it was clearly marked as such and sold "as-is". I'm pretty sure you'll find that the receiver works with an antenna made for FM.

Does the display show "tuned" or "FM Stereo"? This would normally indicate a good reception. The tuner has a signal level threshold and if the signal gets to week, the receiver mutes to prevent noise in the speakers. Swithing to mono make reception less intolerant. Does the problem also occur, when you switch to mono?

It IS an airborne signal so you can expect it to be affected by the antenna and other electromagnetic interference. Most FM tuners have a selector for how aggressively they accept or reject a marginal signal. Perhaps yours is crossing that threshold periodically.

There is a possibility that the radio is set to receive ONLY very high quality, strong signals. Maybe you are just getting the strong FM signals, and not the weak ones, and that all your AM stations are weak. When set on this mode, you dont hear the white noise of weak stations, the radio automatically blocks them out.

My friend has bought a SDFTA11 receiver the same as mine. I can receive spanish channels via Astra 19.2 but we cannot receive these channels on his, even when we use my dish.
It shows 0% sig on 11.509V when my system shows 90% and works well. Can anyone help.
Paul ([email protected])

Check antenna connections at radio and antenna assy.. Poor connections will only receive AM and hardly any FM

Check mounting surfaces at antenna. Corrosion or looseness and the antenna loses its ground to the body.