Radio Squelch - Electrical Noise Problems

If there is a specific voltage converter that seems to be spitting out a lot of noise you might try wrapping it in tin foil. That has worked for me in the past.

On Mon, 11 Jun 2018 23:28:23 -0700, Wyll Surf Air wrote:

If there is a specific voltage converter that seems to be spitting out a
lot of noise you might try wrapping it in tin foil. That has worked for
me in the past.

A cheap source of efficient 12v - 5v converters is to buy 'USB cigar
lighter chargers' from Ebay, throw away the plastic case and solder power
leads onto the 12v side of the PCB. However, these often produce RF noise
because they use a high frequency chopper circuit. I use them, of course,
since they are cheap and easy to find but I mount them inside a small
metal, rather than plastic, box and fit ferrite cores to both 12v and 5v
leads close to the box. I have no noise problems if they're used this way.

The only serious interference noise problem I've had was from a
mechanical T&B. Ferrite cores made no difference to it. The cure was to
fit a "12v interference suppression capacitor" across its its power
leads. These are special purpose polyester film capacitors. Mouser, among
others, sell them or a search using the term shown above will find many
sources, including fleabay.


--
Martin | martin at
Gregorie | gregorie dot org

With the help of a good avionics friend, we recently found that some of the little GPS pucker did interfere with my radio when powered (and connected to a Kobo), while other models (we switched to a dongle) didn’t.

It took a long systematic one by one elimination test, turning on and off one device at a time. One source of static can be your phone(s) obviously, so your testing must include those. Once you find the culprit the solution is probably simple or already explained by some of the pros above who know electronic better.

Good luck,
686

On Tuesday, June 12, 2018 at 12:28:25 AM UTC-6, Wyll Surf Air wrote:
you might try wrapping it in tin foil. That has worked for me in the past.

https://tinyurl.com/y7o8rnpy

I have to agree with PAGA.
It took almost a whole day but taking all units off line and adding them back one at a time identified what system was the source. Then it was a couple hours using ferrite devices to kill the noise. It was amazing to me how specific the positioning of the ferrite device on a wire/cable needed to be. Just moving the ferrite an inch back and forth on a wire/cable made a difference. Eventually, all became good in the world again.