I know I mentioned this before on RPS but didn't get much help... And maybe this may need to get moved to the electrical section...

But I have HID's on my truck and it seems to cause a problem with my CB. I can't run it at night because the high voltage from the ballasts travels through the antenna. Now the antenna is right above the ballast on the fender on the drivers side in the front... 4ft whip antenna... Also I had the ground on the post that the antenna is mounted to. That didn't work, so I relocated the ground to the body mount on the frame rail under neath... That seemed to make it worse because not only did it still pick up the HID feedback it also picked up my air compressor when I turned it on.

Where can I mount the antenna on the truck and still get good reception and make it look good? I was thinking on the frame rail and have the antenna come up between the cab and the bed... But am I still going to get the feedback with moving it that much further away?

Also, on a side note, how can I tune my cb? I seem to only get about 1/4-1/2 mile reception before people start loosing me... It shouldn't do that!

 

Are you sure it's the antenna picking up the noise ? Disconnect the antenna cable from the radio . If the noise is still present , the source is the power feed .
If it disappears and your range is only 1/2 mile inspect the coax for any kinks / breaks .
Another source of radio noise is the Ford fuel pumps so try to keep the antenna as far from the fuel pump as you can.

 

Hmm... Didn't think about the fuel pump thing... I'll go out right now and try the antenna disconnect thing... I'll let you know if it's still present with the cable off... And we'll go from there lol... Thanks!

 

Ok so I went out and disconnected the antenna from the radio like you said and then turned on the HIDs and the noise didn't come up... There's no big bends in the coax itself just some small loops from the excess then zip tied.... So the cable seems to be ok... What's the problem? Why do I get so much feedback?

A friend of mine has a cb in his truck (like 8ft antenna) it's a dodge diesel and he can get out just fine and he doesn't have the feedback in his line from the HIDs like I do... I've honestly never seen it before...

 

There's no big bends in the coax itself just some small loops from the excess then zip tied.

There's a mistake right there.Cut off the zip ties and stretch the cable out without any loops.Coiling the cable produces an inductance which can 1) degrade transmit signal output and 2) create a low pass filter which may increase the sensitivity to the noise you are experienceing.

 

I thought there was a minimum length the coax had to be? If Not I'll just shorten it as short as I can make it and leave just some slack to make it look nice under the hood. I didn't know there was that much current going through that to create inductance though, good thinkin tho... Will that fix the problem then?

 

No loopy loo's in the coax cable. I never even thought about that causing the problem......if you go to that CB shop next to Witchita Pub, they'll say the same thing. something about looping it causes interference and static?

 

so what are you suposed to do with the extra wire?

 

"Wind about 6ft of RG-213 or RG-8 into a coil (6 to 8 turns). For RG-58 use 4ft with 6 to 8 turns. Wind the coax up, placing each turn right next to one another. Use electrical tape to secure turns together"

This will also produces an RF choke. It may help the noise as well.

 

cool, thats what i did..

 

as for your HID noise AM will accept any noise possible, All you can do is turn on the built in filters on the cb.

 

or move all the wireing as far away from the balast as posable.. mount the antenna on your bed rail..

 

I was thinking about mounting it between the cab and the bed, mounting it to either the frame or the body.. A Friend of mine has his there and I really liked it

 

Ah yes.......or mount it to your toolbox like me. I've got plenty of brackets and stainless allens i'll give ya.