Antenna static with Ignition turned on. Plays fine in accessory.
Hi guys. My first post on here after learning so many things from you guys. But I finally need to ask a question i can't seem to find an answer to.
I recently did an antenna relocation on my 2018 SGS to install the extended fender. Initially the antenna seemed to work fine. But hadnt ridden it. When i went to ride last week. I realized it only works while in ACC. Once I switch to ignition. AM/FM is totally gone.
Scenario 1) Whip antenna tucked under the seat. Static on ignition.
Scenario 2) hidden fairing antenna. This setup I thought was working until I buttoned everything back up there we go. All Static on ignition.
You know what.... that did just come to mind for me as well. I changed the headlamp too while my bike was sitting up and the fairing was off last Sunday when i was testing the hidden antenna. Then bam nothing. About to pull it off in a bit and confirm. But damn. That sucks big time if that's the case.
Any type of shielding possible? Or do I need to go with something else.
RF interference can be a bear to remedy especially when it is coming from a noisy switching power supply like in the LED headlight and especially without a good remote mounted antenna. You probably will not find an antenna that is going to pull in a strong enough signal to work for you mounted under the fairing or seat or tucked down between the bags. You might have more luck if you mount a AM/FM tuned whip antenna in the open further back on the bike and make sure the shield has a good ground at the radio end. There are other things you might try that might yield results, rerouting the antenna coax as far away from the light as you can, shielding the rear of the radio with sheet metal, grounding the headlight bucket to the frame, or tossing the LED headlight.
Thanks. It was happening with the whip too. So I'm assuming it's impacting the head unit directly. Or that the antenna input is so close to the head unit. I'm gonna try some ferrite chokes and see what happens. It may be too late to return the headlamp. But if nothing I may go back to stock until I can order another better brand.
Other major concern is ill be upgrading my amp and fair speakers soon too. So I'm not sure if that maybe creating more interference issues up front. Time will tell.
The seller of the the headlight may have "chokes" that will lessen or eliminate the static. The little "barrel" around a lap top power cord is a choke. Add-on chokes usually split in half with a channel in each half for the wire on which they are placed. When closed around the wire, those half channels become a tunnel for the wire. They used to be fairly easy to get from Radio Shack, now the seller of your light may have them. Good Luck.
Chokes may help with this and is something to look at, but if it is radiated RF from the HV switching power supplies in the LED lamps, filters on the headlight wires may not be enough to do the trick. We probably cannot do anything about the radiated noise from the headlight, but we might be able to shield a tuned AM/FM antenna circuit enough to keep from overloading the receiver front end.
I went out and looked at the AFM/FM antenna RF connector into the back of the radio on my Ultra this afternoon.
This plastic plug provides no noise shielding at all and the coax shield is also inadequate. And, I would assume the front end of this receiver is basic and not very well buffered and filtered. The Alpine deck I had installed has an antenna input pigtail coming out of the radio and provided much better shielding as well as the Alpine has a much better receiver, but I still had this same issue with a HID headlight installed. I am replacing that with a LED system in a few days and I am anticipating the same problem. My plan is to replace the coax with a better quality one like RG58, and put on a metal encased plug, route the coax away from the headlight, and ground the headlight to the frame. Don't know if it will do any good, but with RF noise problems, it is sometimes hit and miss until you get satisfactory results...
Have an led headlight from Hogworkz and my radio sounds better after I hit the kill switch to shut bike down, so headlight is still on and still sounds better than when the bike is running. honestly did not pay attention with the stock headlight as when I bought the bike did not use the radio so I could listen to the bike for awhile.
I chased a similar problem on my '12 Limited and it turned out to be the aftermarket LED bulbs I put in the spotlights. Went away as soon as I turned them off. I chased the problem for about a month before I realized what caused it.
02-22-2019, 11:52 AM
Antenna static with Ignition turned on. Plays fine in accessory.
