Radio Noise Problem

[Weatherman]

Ben - in answer to your question why, "not cut it off?" P C I sells many intercoms where no radio is involved, hence the necessary ground wire. When used with a radio, the Comlink 6 Intercom gets its ground from the mike jack of the radio and needs the 16 gauge black wire from the intercom cut so no ground loop exists. In other words, two sources of ground causing the ground loop and thus the whine.

Many times we have found that an outside pseudo wiring genius saw the ground wire cut and re-attached it causing the new whine. As for day three the battery was less than it was to begin with and would attest to your problem.

Lastly, the 'wine' you had towards the end of the race, should have waited until after the race! You shouldn't wine and drive!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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[jps1145]

Ben - in answer to your question why, "not cut it off?" P C I sells many intercoms where no radio is involved, hence the necessary ground wire. When used with a radio, the Comlink 6 Intercom gets its ground from the mike jack of the radio and needs the 16 gauge black wire from the intercom cut so no ground loop exists. In other words, two sources of ground causing the ground loop and thus the whine.

Many times we have found that an outside pseudo wiring genius saw the ground wire cut and re-attached it causing the new whine. As for day three the battery was less than it was to begin with and would attest to your problem.

Lastly, the 'wine' you had towards the end of the race, should have waited until after the race! You shouldn't wine and drive!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This brought up a good question... I've had the Comlink 6 in my racecar for awhile and just added an Icom radio. should I cut the ground wire to the intercom now?

[Vegas_Nick]

Not specific to the intercom, but I generally build my own noise filters for CB and Amateur applications. It doesn't take much more than a capacitor and inductor inside of a small box. All usually available at Radioshack. Another thing that will help the intercom audio is the use of shielded wiring.

[zjohnson]

Update on this. Followed the directions (holy crap) and cut the ground from the intercom. After testing, the car was still making some engine noise. Rethought the problem, one of my good friends is an electrical engineer and asked the simple question as to how the alternator is wired. Its grounded thru the engine to the trans to the chassis on a VW car, right? Well, the car has been powder coated so the ground was intermittent. We ground off the powder coat and added a ground strap for the trans to the chassis. BINGO!!! Raced at the record race and had no issues with engine whine!!

Thanks for the tip weatherman!!