Engine causes radio interference

[byebye]

I have a minor-ish stereo (I like it) no amp just a head unit, couple 50 watt speakers & a powered sub.

I like to listen to the baseball game but the engine destroys the AM radio reception. I do not notice this when just playing tunes on the USB interface.

Is this a capacitor thing? Or would that cause interference on non-radio-play as well?

 

[Sportster-2001-951C-Stock]

AM is very susceptible to interference. You might try an RF choke coil and capacitor designed for car radios, we used to use these in our vehicles many years ago (AM days) with some success. I'm not sure you'll get it all out but it's worth a try.

 

[Luv2Camp]

You can also try running a dedicated power and ground directly from the battery to the stereo. This will eliminate any ground loop issues that can cause whining. You would need ,to also be sure any accessory power line on the radio also gets the feed from the battery. You want to eliminate the radio from the boat circuit

 

[rcguy]

Tune to FM.

 

[xintersecty]

Driving while listening to a baseball game is ill-advised. Considering the amount of alcohol needed to enjoy the said baseball game, one should not be driving, at least for me :-D.

That said, spark plugs and coils are awful on AM radio.

Here is a great article on finding noise on a car
http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/how-to/a84/1272491/

 

[byebye]

I already had a 2nd battery in the boat I wanted to dedicate to the stereo so I went ahead & made that change. It was an improvement for sure. I'll know more when I got up north again, back in the city now & the radio station is really close. A couple of things tho;

1. The head unit draws ~80 mA even when off. This would kill the battery if left on. I already had this problem with my powered sub so I just put the head unit on the same circuit as the sub so now I plug both in at the same time when ready to go. I guess this is just the way that it is since there's no ignition key as part of this circuit.

2. The antenna is just a wire that sits in the same area the head unit is in, if I had a dedicated antenna it would be a big difference - even when I pull the wire up out of that head unit area it's a huge difference. I have a cage/bimini so I could mount something up there along with the VHF antenna. Nearly all the antenna's it see are for a car though - any ideas?

 

[go_panthers]

They make "shorty" antennae for Jeep Wranglers (to keep from getting caught on branches on tight trails). May be worth a shot. $20.

http://www.***********/AntennaX-Shorty-5-inch-Antenna-Wrangler/dp/B00DQJ8T00


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[Luv2Camp]

I already had a 2nd battery in the boat I wanted to dedicate to the stereo so I went ahead & made that change. It was an improvement for sure. I'll know more when I got up north again, back in the city now & the radio station is really close. A couple of things tho;

1. The head unit draws ~80 mA even when off. This would kill the battery if left on. I already had this problem with my powered sub so I just put the head unit on the same circuit as the sub so now I plug both in at the same time when ready to go. I guess this is just the way that it is since there's no ignition key as part of this circuit?

You could try an add a relay off of the ignition switch to turn the power on and off to the radio when you turn the ignition on. This would require you to have an ignition with an accessory feature though. Otherwise when you turn off the engine you would lose the positive feed. The ground and power side of the relay I would pull that off of the radio feed that is going to your dedicated battery. You would use the ignition positive to trigger the relay. This way when you turn the ignition on to either ignition or accessory the positive voltage triggers the relay.