Official Tennessee Thread

Got my wife's new car.

 

Nice! Great time to do it. If you swing through Boston let me know and we can meet up for a drink! Salem is only about 45min away from me.

 

Wired my CB differently tonight but it still goes to static when light bar is on.

CB power is off my aux fuse box. Ground is straight to battery.
Antenna mount is grounded to frame at rear.
Light bar has pwr from aux fuse box and grounded at side of engine bay near battery where there was already a big cable grounded.

Tried a few small ferrite cores in different config.
The way I left them now is:
1 on CB grnd near radio with wire looped once through it.
1 on coax near CB, not looped.
1 on CB pwr near CB, not looped.

Anyone have ideas what else to try?

 

Try grounding your CB as close to the CB as possible. Some of these LEDs are junk. I've had mixed results with different LEDs. Never tried the cores.

 

Anyone going to Texas? there’s some nice cooper st maxx out that way.

 

Driveway is getting full... What is that, a '02 Outback?

 

When you say "goes to static when light bar is on" what do you mean?

 

Mine does it too.....lots of buzz & static in CB when bar is on. Was gonna try an RF choke but haven't gotten around to it yet.

 

White noise.
Not engine whine.
Mean CB works well when light bar is off.
Squelch is maybe 1/4 turn to have no static (silence or clear voices) on any channel. Turn on light bar and static is all i hear.

 

Mess with the RF Gain and squelch knobs. Mine did the same thing whenever I turned my rock lights on.

 

Do you have the power for the CB and light running close to each other?

 

I just turn up the squelch knob and deal with it. No more static.
Probably makes it that I can't hear people with non-grounded CB setups

 

No gain adjust. I only have squelch and volume control.

 

Throw the light bar in the garbage?

 

Have to turn squelch all the way. It cuts out everything so doesn't really help.

 

Going ask about warranty on the light today. Had it less than a year.

 

For about a foot where they go through the firewall grommet.

edit: the wire in the cab is just the switch to the light bar. Low power. Main power and relay for the light all all under the hood away from CB lines except about 6 inches where they converge at my fuse box.

 

It sounds to me like your Antenna cable is picking up RF interfernce from you light power cable. Try running your wires differently to get at least 18" (more is better) of separation between the CB power/antenna wiring and the light wiring. I'd start with getting another antenna cable and run it through a window away from the light wiring just for testing to see if that fixes the issue. It might be to close to the light, or it might not have enough shielding. My CB antenna cable comes into the cab through a gromet under the passenger seat, not the firewall. Antenna cable tends to get better performance at 18' length +/- 3' (ie. 15', 18', 21'), never coil extra cable, stuff it randomly or route it so it's all strait. You also might consider buying a better cable like RG8X vs RG58 most people use. It has much more shielding and will pickup a lot less RF noise.

 

I've heard a few people clear up their CB grounding issues by grounding straight to the battery. Not sure if you've tried that yet, but it's worth a shot.

 

Antenna wire is already 18"+ away from light power. Only cb power & ground wires go near light wires. Cb ground is on battery.