mentat

I know this is a long shot, but I'm clueless so i thought i'd ask for some assistence.

Recently my kenwood head unit has started picking up interference when listening to FM radio only. The interference is a sort of ticking/buzzing sound that varies with the speed that the engine is running. Ie, when idling, there's a slow ticking, but at speed on the motorway it's a constant noise.
Occasionally when a lorry goes past and i'm idling, i'll here the interference change with the speed of the lorry's engine.

I'm hoping it could be something as simple as a cable coming loose/rubbing on the bodywork, but i don't know where to start.

Anyone ever had an occurance like this at all?

JFB

Have you checked the earthing on your head unit? I'm a novice but that sounds like an earthing issue to me.

Jerome

mentat

Erm, sadly i'm even more novice than that.
I wouldn't be able to tell if the earthing was correct or not!
I didn't fit the head unit, so i'm not sure what was involved.

JFB

Well I checked with mate who is well read on "ICE" and he says you've got classic "Altenator whine" due to insufficient earthing. You should earth the headunit direct to the car's chassis. He believes the Kenwood earthing wire is black and you should bypass the loom as the current set up is not working and connect it to the chassis somewhere. If you look behind the headunit inside the dash you may simply see a black wire disconnected from its earthing point.

Good luck

Jerome

mentat

Cheers for the info!
I'll take a look at the weekend and see what i find.
I'll report back monday!
Ta.

DJNafey

Yeah, had the same problem on my old Mini some years back when I put my first big ICE in it. My head unit was wired direct to the battery so there wasn't much I could do to improve the wiring though. I fitted a suppressor (little electrical component for a few quid from any decent ICE shop) to the alternator and also another one to the coil as well before it was completely cured.