FUEL PUMP RFI ( ham radio related)

I apologize to anyone that I may have missed a reply to……..

 

Ill look at the audio settings on the phone, it basically upfades all recorded audio for the first 10 or so seconds...

 

Don't take this the wrong way please.
The reason corporations won't listen about your HAM is that only two tenths of one percent use ham in the US. There are over ten million vehicles sold each year and 250K Tacomas so that two tenths now becomes hundredths of a percent.
I am a woodworker. Not many of us either. But, you need to probably find a solution and not depend on anyone else. I'm sure there are ham forums right?

 

This forum has been more helpful than the one ham forum I posted the same questions on. Most hams are complete clueless these days and can hardly operate their own equipment, let alone something technical. It’s a shame because it used to be full of people who had TONS of knowledge, but it kinda turned to shit over the past 10-15 years when people stopped understanding the theory required in favor of test question memorization.

it’s just not the same as it was when I first got licensed in the late 90’s. ( as I sit here shaking my fist ) lol


But there is customer service and telling someone that it wasn’t factory installed it’s not their problem is not even remotely close. Especially when the equipment in their vehicle is emitting emissions on frequencies that are regulated and licensing is required.


I deal with all sorts of things that really aren’t my problem in the Cable TV and internet fields all day long. But we can’t tell a customer that “ yeah, I understand the Netflix in your tv isn’t working , because that’s really a direct competition to our on demand services , we refuse to look at it even though you are using our internet to stream it.
We roll out, verify our plant is up to engineering specs, shoot the house for noise , check for old fittings/ splitters , run speed tests and verify where the problem is. If it’s your device, we will show you but not before we make sure everything on our side of the house is good.

 

Same with woodworking. Now everyone plays video games and no hands on. If I were 30 years younger right now I would open up a heating, plumbing and building shop and make millions.

 

did you look at the apple link i posted.? try switching to mono, rather than stereo, audio recording for the video.
claim is it is an apple bug...though i did not see the 10 sec upfade on this last video. it may not happen all the time.

the home station stuff makes some sense. you say 20KHz and i see that repeating harmonically but damn not falling off as rapidly as i would expect. and 20KHz could very well be PWM.
The resolution in the video with the handheld makes it hard to determine the repeat freq if the peaks are in fact harmonics.
Can you determine the distance between the peaks in Hz? if it is similar then yeah, PWM. Which is i guess what was always
suspected but hoping for better confirmation. I think the hand held is too limited to really let you know what is going on but
having the advantage of looking at the KOI noise with a better unit allows you to make a good guess.
Did you try standing near the KOI pump with the handheld?

you said you saw noise diminish as you moved antenna around. can you determine a difference between ECU and pump.
passenger and driver side should be the same if pump is in middle of truck. very different if the ECU is the problem.
just to rule it out.

soooo...whataya gonna do about it. I think you said you added some ferries (lol - am i picking up ham jargon...and wtf is with meters.
i need a calculator to translate what you are talking about ).

 

I completely missed your link. I keep bouncing between devices in the house.

that small SA is like 50 bucks on Amazon. It’s great for seeing small shit , or doing some sleuthing , it is nice cause it does have a RF generator built in that can also be modulated with a constant tone which is great for receiver alignments or just screwing around. I don’t have access to any real RF analyzers , as the 5 plus K to pick on up isn’t in my future anytime soon.

I’m used to mentioning “ meters” as the specific band , it’s a ham thing I guess.

when I moved the SA from the fuel pump towards the front of then truck, the amplitude or signal strength got weaker. Even when placing right by then frame mounted ECU , it wasn’t noticeable like it was when directly under the fuel tank.
I did temporarily add some mix 31 ferrites onto the harness right by the pumps ECU, there was no change, so that’s where I came to the conclusion that it’s not radiating over the harness from the ecu. Granted a clamp on only equaled to one turn per clamp, BUT I did put 7 on , so technically 7 turns should have attenuated something if that was the point of origin.
I was taking to my dad tonight and he reminded me that I did drop the tank last year and clip two on by the fuel pump and it helped a little bit. I forgot I did that.
I mean I’ll order more toroids ( the donut shaped ones) drop the tank, add some to the harness that feeds the pump motor directly then add more clamp one outside the tank and see.
I’m almost certain that will resolve my issue , BUT the second I do that and the pump fails , that’s the first to be blamed and the warranty would be voided. But needed confirmation whether or not that could mess up the pump signaling or voltage feed with the PWM voodo.

that’s why I’m pushing for Toyota to do something or put in writing how to suppress RFI. gm and Ford have written TSB’s about doing the same thing over the years due to upfitting fleets of emergency vehicles and similar things happening with their two way radios.

 

i saw that when i went to see what you were using. amazing you can get a spectrum analyzer for that little.
i use to used analyzers in audio range eons ago and omg were they expensive, though professional.
we may be asking too much of $50 but just wait a few years.

That should be enuf to rule out ECU for us sticklers.

oh, if you do that, you might try shielding the pump. warranty is certainly an issue with that.
you might try wrapping the tank without warranty fears. Mu-metal can be expensive. Any steel wrapping foil would probably do something.

keep us updated.

edit: you know...the plastic truck bed is probably part of the problem. if it were metal you'd probably get some attenuation at the antenna.
and then there is the plastic fuel tank.
modern day problems for an older technology.

 

That top image looks exactly like a harmonic of a 20KHz fundamental frequency. 20KHz is extremely common for switching power supplies, and PWM motor drives. Since that plot starts at 1.8MHz, the decay also looks about right to me as well.

If you truck looks anything like that top plot, then I would definitely say your seeing a harmonic of the PWM.

 

I'm also interested in the outcome. I haven't installed my screwdriver on the 2020 Tacoma but would like to. It's currently setup on the 1992 pickup but there is so much ignition noise it's almost useless.

@m603holden ?

 

OP,
If you can find a car stereo shop that installs ham radio gear, especially antennae, the shop may have an experienced tech/installer that might be of some help. Otherwise, hit your local radio club for some elmer advice. https://www.paarc.net/ It used to be alternators we worried about and that was all we had to worry about. But cars have had these pumps and activated gizmos long enough that you cannot be the first to have run across this. My brain also says ask the local radio station for the engineer who used to work on the transmission tower/antenna back when radio was local. He (it probably won't be a she) may have all sort of ideas and gear to help you in your fox hunt.

W7MML

 

Maybe you could remove the bed instead, do whatever you want to the pump/ pump harnass from above. Then put a 4x8 sheet of steel between the bed and frame, obviously bonded.

More of a workaround, but its cheaper than the steel foil and at the very least you would get a significant ground plane.

"Meters" refers to wavelength at a given frequency.
It happens to be a convenient measurement at most Ham frequencies... as opposed to higher frequency devices like wifi/cell which can be multiple ghz

 

Or...wait until VFtune releases the fuel pump/controller upgrade he's been working on and see if that has the same issues

 

I honestly don’t think it’s an issue with the install, and I’ve already done all the braided bonding strap stuff to all the panels. ( bed to frame, hood to fenders, fenders to frame , doors to cab etc etc. when I tune , the antenna tunes everything from 40 meters-6 meters ( 7mhz -50 MHz) without any issues to about 1.5-1 everywhere.

As for the clubs , I don’t partake in socialized radio. To much politics in clubs for my liking. Not so much current political issues but more power struggles and such… it’s a whole other animal here in these parts .

the ARRL published some info awhile back and everything including talking to the guys in the lab with my other RFI issue , all points towards Toroids and ferrites to cure. ( back to the warranty issues)






The only difference on the install now is I don’t have that tuner in place and have substituted ham sticks with the ATAS 110a screw driver antenna.

 

I often thought about a plate cut to assist with better grounding surface , but only for a radiation of radiation standpoint , but at the cost of Steel or even aluminum these days, ouch

popping that composite bed base out without pulling the entire thing would be nice.
The tank isn’t bad with a floor jack, board and another set of hands, it gets tricky to get up to release the filler neck to drop it all the way down. Before I dropped it about 4 inches to get to the harness above the tank , but I was running out of time.
I’ll just have to order a bunch of smaller toroids and get everything ready for when it’s dropped , I can do what I need to do at one time providing I never get a call back from the service manager.

 

we are supposed to get some more
Flash flooding today along with some potential threats for tornadoes. I don’t think playing tonight is going to happen.

I have another SDR like was shown to demonstrate the other RFI, I’ll disconnect that from inside the house and prep that for spectrum imaging via the waterfall , I think I have enough info to determine what it’s going to look like when I drag that out.

 

@Cavmedic dumb question, and off topic, but I am curious what you mostly use the ham radio for? In the 90's i thought about getting my license, but then cell phones and computers got so ubiquitous that the idea of getting my license dropped off my Todo list.

 

Also, good luck with the storms today. Stay safe!

 

honestly , these days just a hobby. I mostly like to listen to utility stations, pirate stations and other thing like aeronautical HF ( over ocean) and like to listen to the clandestine and spy stations that still transmit the numbers like the Cold War era used to do.

I don’t do a lot of transmitting , as it’s difficult to find conversations that are interesting to me these days as 90% is political, And Covid discussions.
I do occasionally like to make DX contacts , and will make contacts with guys who go out and operate portable , on mountain tops, and National/ state parks.
As for the Emcomm portion ( which seems to be a huge push the past few years) I find it obsolete and a personal waste of time to expect any GOV agency would call and and rely on the amateur service to provide a USEFUL function during an emergency. Especially when most agencies on the east coast at least have all migrated to P25 phase two systems with multiple backhaul methods in the event of a comm outage. Not to mention the ability for commercial services having portable cell towers that can be deployed in a wide spread outage.
But that’s my opinion and my personal opinion only based on being a first responder for over 20 years in both Fire/ Ems and having been in LE for a bit as well.

 

I don't "use it" for anything. It's a fun technical hobby. Like scuba diving or hang gliding.

If not for contesting, I would have quit long ago. Rag chewing on HF phone with old guys is a real drag, the repeater HT folks don't really have anything exciting to talk about either.

I do more tower work now than operating. There's nobody left that knows how to, let alone still can. The big hardware side of ham radio is dying.