deathrunner

It is a 10 or 12 gauge, I can try.... I took it off and notice no difference.....

I have two things working against me.

1) I have Nology plug wires which I have to believe are gonna be noisy as hell

2) I have a fiberglass hood. Not really gonna keep much of the noise in the engine bay.

Yota4runner

Well, the fiberglass hood I'm sure you can't do much about. But you could try some different plug wires. And as far as the grounding wire is concerend I was told to try a 6 gauge.

deathrunner

6....wow

As far as changing wires....no way... these things kick ass.

Yota4runner

Yeah, but you could swap em (if you have a spare set) and see if it helps at all. I doubt it will. but worth a shot, what do they do anyway? like in terms of performance.

deathrunner

They have a huge capacitor in them that stores up a charge. They spark like 4X harder than usual. More efficient burn, cleaner emissions, more complete burn. I'm not gonna say I noticed any power gains, but my truck runds a hell of a lot stronger. And it doesn't use any multi-spark crap liek an MSD, it's just one big ass pop.

I probably have an old set of wires I could try.

4Crawler

iTrader: (3)

I don't get any EFI noise on my CB. I ran dedicated wires from the battery (power and ground - fused of course), twisting the wires as they ran back to the cab. Then that circuit hits a noise filter that came with my radio (looks somewhat like the JC Whitney filter you list 2nd) and that feeds my CB. Keeping the power and ground wires together helps eliminate places for noise to enter the system.

That plus the antenna on the rear driver's side corner (away from noise sources) makes all the difference:
- http://www.4crawler.com/4x4/CheapTricks/CBantenna.shtml

Might also be a poorly shielded radio. The one I first had (AM/FM/CB combo) was noisey no matter what I did. Ended up putting it in my VW diesel where it runs nice and quiet w/ no ignition or EFI noise, unless another vehicle pulls up beside me

4Hummer

I have one of these in-line and have NO noise problems what so ever.

deathrunner

I'm just confused because the Antenna test got rid of the noise. Which everyone seems to say means that the antenna is picking up the noise.

If it was a poorly shielded radio, wouldn't the noise still be there without the antenna?

I'm down to buy a filter, or even a new radio, if that woudl fix the problem, but everything I have read so far has directed me away from noise filters and "dirty power"

I feel like the only thing left to try is a filter in the antenna line.

4hummer- did you try the antenna test before the noise filter? I'd be curious to see if removing the antenna got rid of the noise, if the antenna test did the same thing as mine does, then maybe a power line filter will work for me.

I'm pretty frustrated with the thing, but I really want to resolve this, it is pretty unbarable on the trail.

deathrunner

Oh yeah, also, my cb has 3 wires. Ground and a red hot (Manual says to go to battery) and an orange hot (Manual says to go to fuse box).

Is it ok to run the orange to the battery also? I think this might be worth trying?

Yota4runner

I'm not sure, I have never seen a radio with a wiring setup like that before.

I'm also curious to know if Michael tried the Antenna "test" before putting in the filter.

4Hummer

Nope sorry Guys never tried the antenna test. I had the Antenna Matched to the CB with an SWR meter, Power came straight from the battery. CB Worked GREAT with the truck off, But would Whine while driving down the road noise and would get worse/better depending on throttle squelch had to be half way or more.

The CB is a stainless Steal Whip and was told is one of the better antenas on the market. Radio Shop sold me the noise filter and it solved my problem.

As for the 3rd ORANGE wire in your setup its for Memory.

deathrunner

OK I have some more stuff to try. I checked the Cobra (My cb manufacturer) website and got some info. They mention running an additional ground to from the actual cb to the frame. I also decided I don't care about the cb going off or on with the car, so I am going to run both wires to the battery straight.

I also spoke to Nology. They are awesoem. They called me back the same day and at the end of the call pointed out that they have a lifetime warranty (eager to take care of me). They said the wires shouldn't cause too much interference, but he pointed out that cb's have a very broad range and are prone to picking up noise. He recommended grounding the cb chasis also, and running a ground wire from the point I ground teh wires to back to the frame. He said that redundant grounding wouldn't hurt. He also seemed to think that the powerline filters could help.

Yota4runner

So, have you tried any of that stuff yet?

deathrunner

yes just friday I did.

I combined teh accessory and hot power and grounded the cb chasis. Didn't seem to do anything immediately.

I also tried grounding the plug wires....no help.

On the trail this weekend, I still had the issues, but grounding the chasis and/or relocating the accessory lead helped a little bit.

I also noticed thet I pick up my car horn through the cb.... This confused me. When I take off teh antenna the interference is gone...so we assume that means the interference is being picked up through the antenna.

The horn shows me that either:

A) the antenna can pick up the horn (Standard disc horn)

B) The antenna test isn't accurate.

Any thoughts. I think I might try a power line noise filter just to see....

Yota4runner

Try the power line noise filter and then report back. I've got a line on some RFI surpressing plugwires so we will see how that goes. But I think maybe this is one of those thigns if we try a bunch of stuff we need to keep each other informed as to what helps and what doesn't

deathrunner

definitely, let me know. I'll keep this thread alive as I try stuff. It will be a couple weeks before I try the power filter. I'm off to Australia, soon.

JeepMonstR

I am having the SAME EXACT PROBLEM and it's driving me nuts!

I have a 2004 Jeep Wrangler, Cobra 18WXSTII CB, 5 ft Wilson antenna with tunable tip.... Antenna is mounted behind the driver-side taillight. Everything is grounded....

I got the SWR down to about 1:2 to 1:5 across the band.

But I have major noise as soon as I start up the Jeep. It makes it impossible to hear (legal) radios more than 5+ miles away while driving.... If the antenna is not attached, there is absolutely no noise.

I was told by an expert to do a "sniff" test by taking a walkie talkie (with the antenna all the way down) and walk around the jeep with the engine running until the noise gets loudest, and then I'd find the problem and try to go from there.... Well, the only problem with that was, the walkie talkie did not pick up the noise until I would touch the walkie talkie antenna to anything metal on the jeep (bumper, screws, etc)... And of course, the walkie talkie picked the noise up if I plugged the Jeep's antenna into the external antenna jack. (and the walkie talkie was using batteries, so that tells me it's definately not a dirty power problem.)

I'll definately be checking this thread from time to time to see if anyone figured something out. And if I find anything out, I'll be sure to come back in here and let you all know!

Yota4runner

I have a set of MSD RFI suppression plug wires on order, they should be in, in a couple weeks so I hope they might help. After that I am going to start trying noise filters. I'll let you guys know what I figure out.

JeepMonstR

I just ordered one of these:

http://radioproshop.com/filters/nc100.htm

I'll let you all know how it affects my RX and TX....

JeepMonstR

Well - I bought this filter from http://radioproshop.com/filters/nc100.htm :



.... and it's more or less an RF Gain switch for your CB. It doesn't actually filter any unwanted noises out. It really only cuts down your reception.

It's great if your CB radio doesn't have RF Gain control like mine, but if you already have an RF Gain, then it's totally useless.

As for me, this device is nice because I can finally do some local talking without hearing a ton of noise (because I hate using the squelch), but this is more or less a "band-aid"... So I'm still looking for a solution if anyone has one...

Thanks!