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CB trouble...

T3hk1w1

NAXJA Forum User
Location
Houston
I hate to start yet another CB thread, but has anyone mounting a CB to their XJ had trouble with noise from the ignition system? I just got a uniden 520XL and I'm getting lots of noise from the spark plugs coming in through my coax cable...
Especially interested if you have a 2000-2001 with coil packs instead of a distributor and wires.
 
WELL...how do you have the coax cable routed? That plays a huge part in the sound pollution. I have my CB antenna mounted opposite my radio antenna, with the coax routed through a grommet in the firewall and under my seat.
More than likely you need to move the antenna to the rear of your vehicle and run the coax from there, so it doesn't approach the engine whatsoever.

And my jeep is a 2001
 
Check your power and grounds also. May want to put an inline filter on em.
 
The "cleanest" 12v power is from the battery. Run both CB power leads from the battery. Try to keep the coax cable away from any other wires as much as is practical. Are you using resistor spark plugs or "high performance" plug wires? Performance plug wires "leak" lots of noise, resistor plugs and wires dampen engine noise. Some CB's are better than other at filtering noise. Cheap CB's are cheap because they often have less noise filtering. CB power cable filters are commonly used. My 2000 has some spark plug static.
 
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Running both CB leads from the battery is an excellent suggestion - it helps because it keeps any ignition noise in "common mode" (i.e. induced equally in the ground and power lines, which cancels out) which reduces its impact greatly. It also results in much less voltage drop since your CB is the only load on the circuit and goes directly to the battery instead of sharing with the blower motor, ignition, headlights etc. Use heavy gage cable - I used 10ga boat cable for my ham radio, though its power draw is higher as it produces 65 watts of RF rather than the 6-12 permitted from a CB. Another thing you can do if you still have noise issues after upgrading the power wiring is to buy a few large ferrite rods (some ukrainian guy on ebay is selling packs of 10 fairly large ones for a very reasonable price), tape a few of them into a bundle, and wrap your power cable around it about a dozen times to form a choke. If you still have RFI issues after that you can add a few 0.1uF ceramic capacitors across the power and ground wires before and after the choke to form a pi filter.

EDIT: also make sure you have a good ground at the antenna - don't just clamp it to sheetmetal or something carelessly, run a piece of heavy gage wire or braid from the coax braid to a bolt in the frame or a body panel.
 
Guess I should have elaborated on my setup-I'm using a wilson mag mount on the roof, and I have the radio wiring running straight to the battery. I have resistor spark plugs
 
My bet is on the radio,no problems with my Cobra running of the cigarette lighter circuit in my 2000XJ!
 
Running both CB leads from the battery is an excellent suggestion - it helps because it keeps any ignition noise in "common mode" (i.e. induced equally in the ground and power lines, which cancels out) which reduces its impact greatly. It also results in much less voltage drop since your CB is the only load on the circuit and goes directly to the battery instead of sharing with the blower motor, ignition, headlights etc. Use heavy gage cable - I used 10ga boat cable for my ham radio, though its power draw is higher as it produces 65 watts of RF rather than the 6-12 permitted from a CB. Another thing you can do if you still have noise issues after upgrading the power wiring is to buy a few large ferrite rods (some ukrainian guy on ebay is selling packs of 10 fairly large ones for a very reasonable price), tape a few of them into a bundle, and wrap your power cable around it about a dozen times to form a choke. If you still have RFI issues after that you can add a few 0.1uF ceramic capacitors across the power and ground wires before and after the choke to form a pi filter.

EDIT: also make sure you have a good ground at the antenna - don't just clamp it to sheetmetal or something carelessly, run a piece of heavy gage wire or braid from the coax braid to a bolt in the frame or a body panel.

Good advise... subscribed.:worship:
 
I have my CB mounted to the passenger side center console. The antenna is bolted to the left rear by the tail gate. Power come from wither the radio or a heavy gauge wire I have running to the back for power int he trunk.. its been a while and i don't fully recall. No noise.
 
Those are all good ideas, some radios are just more sensitive to the engine electrical system than others and if checking your grounds doesn't fix the problem then puting a filter in the power and ground wires should fix the noise. It really doesn't matter what brand of radio you have, it's just the filters in the radios, some are better than others.
 
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