Submariner1
Senior Member
- Joined
- Sep 3, 2016
- Messages
- 4,692
- Reaction score
- 788
- Location
- Windsor Berkshire
- Your Mercedes
- CL500 2009 5.5
OK I got my repaired HK Amp back from repair.
All good or so I thought. And to some extent still do.
CD works perfectly and so does the Radio. When the car is starionery ign. Pos 1.
Went for a drive, and I thought I would check everything re recommendations to everyone.
Radio 2 sounded bad, so did Capital radio. i also Couldn't find a lot of stations, OK we dont have good radio here, but it was perfectly serviceable.
Went home terrible radio reception, could hardly find any stations.
End prognoses:
CD works perfectly all the time.
With the engine off, the Radio is crystal clear oodles of named stations.
Start the engine, and horrible interference, not engine whine, very weak reception noises, but only on the Radio.
Note I had wired in a dual USB port, from the rear cigar lighter for the Dashcams..
Heres the odd one, remembering on a dash cam forum someone mentioned radio interference with a dashcam.
So, pretty dispondent, I unplugged both dash cams, perfect Radio sound, reception and loads of named stations starionery or driving!
So I tried it stationery, engine off, Ign. Pos 1. great reception! All stations visible.
Switch to Ign.2 on come the Dashcams. On comes the interference and partial loss of stations!
Unplug the Dashcams one by one, interference reduces, with one disconnected, remove the other dashcam USB cable from the USB port and Radio recovers perfectly, and all stations circa 20+ all come back! no interference.
So I assume, the USB power charger circuitry is all fine. I.e. everything works perfectly in the Mercedes as long as the dashcams are not powered!
Note one USB cable goes along the centre console and up the A Pillar and to the centre of windscreen.
And the other goes across rear parcel shelf and curves up right near the rear windsheild Ariel!
Q. I feel BBA did repair the Amplifier and Tuner properly, and its all down to these dam dashcams! Note they didn’t find any fault with the Radio Tuner element. Would you agree?
Here is the real pig! I bluntly NEVER listen to the Radio. So I dont know whether the Dashcams actually caused interference to the Radio before I had Amplifier intermittant problems.
I even stated in my Amp problem threads, that mine was not the usual issue of loosing Station Names, but then later, I stated maybe 15% of the time the Amp. started to work, that I lost Radio station names.
I now suspect, this could well have been, when I was testing it when it distorted, to see if it had lost radio stations. I.e. thats the time I unusually used the Radio. And only some of the testing times did I start the engine (activating the Dashcams).
Has anyone heard of dashcams causing serious radio reception problems?
Is my logic right, that its unlikely the Amp repair could have effected the ability to reject radio reception Interference , especially as they found no fault with the radio tuner, so would logically have not touched that part.
As I never listen to the radio, this doesn't cause me any inconvenience regarding the dashcams.
Just want to be sure the Amp was repaired properly, which I am 98% sure it was.
Rear dashcam location
All good or so I thought. And to some extent still do.
CD works perfectly and so does the Radio. When the car is starionery ign. Pos 1.
Went for a drive, and I thought I would check everything re recommendations to everyone.
Radio 2 sounded bad, so did Capital radio. i also Couldn't find a lot of stations, OK we dont have good radio here, but it was perfectly serviceable.
Went home terrible radio reception, could hardly find any stations.
End prognoses:
CD works perfectly all the time.
With the engine off, the Radio is crystal clear oodles of named stations.
Start the engine, and horrible interference, not engine whine, very weak reception noises, but only on the Radio.
Note I had wired in a dual USB port, from the rear cigar lighter for the Dashcams..
Heres the odd one, remembering on a dash cam forum someone mentioned radio interference with a dashcam.
So, pretty dispondent, I unplugged both dash cams, perfect Radio sound, reception and loads of named stations starionery or driving!
So I tried it stationery, engine off, Ign. Pos 1. great reception! All stations visible.
Switch to Ign.2 on come the Dashcams. On comes the interference and partial loss of stations!
Unplug the Dashcams one by one, interference reduces, with one disconnected, remove the other dashcam USB cable from the USB port and Radio recovers perfectly, and all stations circa 20+ all come back! no interference.
So I assume, the USB power charger circuitry is all fine. I.e. everything works perfectly in the Mercedes as long as the dashcams are not powered!
Note one USB cable goes along the centre console and up the A Pillar and to the centre of windscreen.
And the other goes across rear parcel shelf and curves up right near the rear windsheild Ariel!
Q. I feel BBA did repair the Amplifier and Tuner properly, and its all down to these dam dashcams! Note they didn’t find any fault with the Radio Tuner element. Would you agree?
Here is the real pig! I bluntly NEVER listen to the Radio. So I dont know whether the Dashcams actually caused interference to the Radio before I had Amplifier intermittant problems.
I even stated in my Amp problem threads, that mine was not the usual issue of loosing Station Names, but then later, I stated maybe 15% of the time the Amp. started to work, that I lost Radio station names.
I now suspect, this could well have been, when I was testing it when it distorted, to see if it had lost radio stations. I.e. thats the time I unusually used the Radio. And only some of the testing times did I start the engine (activating the Dashcams).
Has anyone heard of dashcams causing serious radio reception problems?
Is my logic right, that its unlikely the Amp repair could have effected the ability to reject radio reception Interference , especially as they found no fault with the radio tuner, so would logically have not touched that part.
As I never listen to the radio, this doesn't cause me any inconvenience regarding the dashcams.
Just want to be sure the Amp was repaired properly, which I am 98% sure it was.
Rear dashcam location
Last edited: