Why do I have a shark fin antenna?

Hello everyone, trying to find out why I might have a shark antenna on my TDI. It's to my knowledge a base model. I don't have nav, and from what I can tell I don't have the mobile phone package. I have no signs of it, unless it simply means that I can connect my phone over bluetooth.

I'm going to be installing one of the aftermarket Chinese headunits when it arrives and am planning on using an OEM sharkfin for the GPS. Hoping someone may know if it's on the car in case it was going to get nav, or something like that.

Anyone have any ideas?

The shark fin on my GTI has 3 connections: Sirius/XM, radio, and compass. I do not believe there was a connector in the 4th spot for GPS since I don't have nav in my car.

Tucker3381 said:

The shark fin on my GTI has 3 connections: Sirius/XM, radio, and compass. I do not believe there was a connector in the 4th spot for GPS since I don't have nav in my car.

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Thank you for this! Did you completely remove your headliner or just enough to get to the underside of the antenna? If it's the latter, how did you go about doing that?

blue is the GPS (compass for non nav )

Dario said:

blue is the GPS (compass for non nav )

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Do you know if you could use it as a GPS antenna then? I'm guessing they would not have made multiple antennas for cars with and without nav.

rickgram said:

Hello everyone, trying to find out why I might have a shark antenna on my TDI. It's to my knowledge a base model. I don't have nav, and from what I can tell I don't have the mobile phone package. I have no signs of it, unless it simply means that I can connect my phone over bluetooth.

I'm going to be installing one of the aftermarket Chinese headunits when it arrives and am planning on using an OEM sharkfin for the GPS. Hoping someone may know if it's on the car in case it was going to get nav, or something like that.

Anyone have any ideas?

Click to expand...

fwiw, I have the chinese 8" head unit as well and I just used the gps antenna that it came with. Mounted it inside the dash out of the way and I've never had any issues with connectivity. Takes less than 10 seconds when I load the nav software for the gps to connect. I don't think there's any need to run the gps antenna all the way to your roof.

(That being said, I don't even use the nav feature, I just mirror waze from my phone instead. So much better than the crappy maps available in WinCE format.)

shz702 said:

fwiw, I have the chinese 8" head unit as well and I just used the gps antenna that it came with. Mounted it inside the dash out of the way and I've never had any issues with connectivity. Takes less than 10 seconds when I load the nav software for the gps to connect. I don't think there's any need to run the gps antenna all the way to your roof.

(That being said, I don't even use the nav feature, I just mirror waze from my phone instead. So much better than the crappy maps available in WinCE format.)

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The only real reason I want to do this is so I don't have to use the antenna it comes with. I'm a little OCD about things, so if I can use what's there, and not anything to the dash I think it'll look better. I've ordered a Fakra C to SMA adapter, so hopefully after that it'll just plug into the unit and work. If infact the compass antenna can be used for GPS. The cable will already be there so I won't have to pull the headliner or anything to intensive like that.

I purchased one of the 10" units from AliExpress. I'm 95% sold on the way it looks. And from what I think I've found online, it maintains the OEM settings menus through an app on it. But I'll be able to confirm, when/if it ever gets here. It seems like everyone in China took two weeks off for Chinese New Year. lol.

rickgram said:

Thank you for this! Did you completely remove your headliner or just enough to get to the underside of the antenna? If it's the latter, how did you go about doing that?

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Removed just enough trim to pop the headliner down. There's a piece of trim that goes along the top. Remove that completely. Then for the sides, you should be able to pop them out just far enough to make the headliner move. Bending the headliner is fine, mine was bent pretty far and no wrinkles or anything persisted.

rickgram said:

The only real reason I want to do this is so I don't have to use the antenna it comes with. I'm a little OCD about things, so if I can use what's there, and not anything to the dash I think it'll look better. I've ordered a Fakra C to SMA adapter, so hopefully after that it'll just plug into the unit and work. If infact the compass antenna can be used for GPS. The cable will already be there so I won't have to pull the headliner or anything to intensive like that.

I purchased one of the 10" units from AliExpress. I'm 95% sold on the way it looks. And from what I think I've found online, it maintains the OEM settings menus through an app on it. But I'll be able to confirm, when/if it ever gets here. It seems like everyone in China took two weeks off for Chinese New Year. lol.

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Just so you know the aftermarket GPS antenna will be visible inside the dash, I would advise for you just to do that but hey is your car. good luck man.

do you have a link to that unit? and yeah two weeks of holidays that made my mirrors way late lol instead of 5 days but whatever.

Dario said:

blue is the GPS (compass for non nav )

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if blue is gps, what is green? which is the xm antenna?

BxGTI said:

Just so you know the aftermarket GPS antenna will be visible inside the dash, I would advise for you just to do that but hey is your car. good luck man.

do you have a link to that unit? and yeah two weeks of holidays that made my mirrors way late lol instead of 5 days but whatever.

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I didn't think about that. I could just stick it to the underside of the dash. We'll see. I bought the adapter if it plugs in and works, the. It works if not. Then I'll probably just stick the on it comes with up underneath the dash.

This is the unit I bought

The current home screen set up is terrible I was reading some stuff on XDA Developers about the units, and I'm planning on rooting and changing the icons. But even before that I'm putting an app/launcher(if you pay for it) called AutoMate on the unit. It mimics the look and feel of Android Auto.

Sorry I meant to say invisible inside the dash, I just saw my mistake lol.
Thanks for the link


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk.

Derf said:

if blue is gps, what is green? which is the xm antenna?

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euro specs

have 2 models

blue/red ( gps/tel)

or

blue/red/yellow ( yellow is webasto antenna for remote start )

rickgram said:

Do you know if you could use it as a GPS antenna then? I'm guessing they would not have made multiple antennas for cars with and without nav.

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it should work ,dont think that they make 10 different antennas for various markets




edit : we have this one

http://www.cars-equipment.com/www/en/shop/roof-antenna-5/oem-5q0035507c-5fq-gps-gsm-webasto/

where the webasto is in euro model the satelite radio is on the USA ,that are the two differences

Dario said:

euro specs

have 2 models

blue/red ( gps/tel)

or

blue/red/yellow ( yellow is webasto antenna for remote start )








it should work ,dont think that they make 10 different antennas for various markets




edit : we have this one

http://www.cars-equipment.com/www/en/shop/roof-antenna-5/oem-5q0035507c-5fq-gps-gsm-webasto/

where the webasto is in euro model the satelite radio is on the USA ,that are the two differences

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Thanks for the info! It looks like they're all the same part, the part numbers look to all be pretty similar so I'm guessing the only difference is what connectors are installed in the antenna it's self. So, there are a bunch of different part numbers for the same thing, which logistically sounds like a nightmare for VW.

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Anyway just as an update to this whole process for anyone interested, as I was waiting for my unit to get shipped out I sent the seller a questions asking if this could interface with the cars computer. Conveniently, as I got a message that said no, the unit shipped out. A little shady, but hey, it's on it's way.

From what I've been able to research at this point, it looks like the units that can get to the cars menus have a different connection system in the rear. Which may make "hacking" the functions into a different unit harder than just digging out the app from one that has it and installing it on a unit that doesn't.

The real kicker here is, it seems like the units that are able to get to the cars functions can only be purchased in a piano black finish. That's great if you have a Golf R, but not so great for everyone else.

When my unit arrives, I'll install it and see if what I can get up and running.

Does anyone know where the cars menu stuff is stored in the car? Is it something that the OEM units reach over CANBUS or is it somewhere else?

Has anyone successfully removed a connector?

I tried pulling on them, but they seem stuck on pretty well... any suggestions to remove a connector?

They seem to be some kind of FAKRA connector.
If that is correct - there is a locking mechanism, and they are color coded
Blue = GPS
Brown = Sirius
Green = XM

Reference: http://radio.passus.pl/files/Fakra.pdf