Audio problems, static

i have a 96 accord, recently i been having issues with the radio, when the car is on i hear a static noise coming out of the speakers, but when i just have the key in the accesories position the radio sounds perfect... anyone know of anything that can cause this?

Reply to
loxy
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Those type of problems can be tricky to find. Something clearly changed in your car, since it worked before, right? This is not a new stereo that never sounded right, correct?

On older cars, the distributor had a little round thing hanging off the side called a condensor (really a capacitor), but your car probably does not have that. If it does, I'd replace it.

It could be a ground connection to the radio. Use a start boost cable and use the negative (don't bother with the positive at all) wire to bridge from the battery negative to the frame the radio is mounted to. If it now goes away, you have a loose ground somewhere. Also try that very same ground connection from the battery negative to various metal pieces of the engine (including the distributor) - it is all meant make contact to ground but could be that a correded nut/bolt is causing this to not happen.

It could be due to your distributor wires, rotor, cap going bad. I'd make sure they are seated right. To replace them and find out that it wasn't the problem is an expensive proposition, though.

If you can't make it go away, you could use an in line EMI/RFI power filter from Radio Shack (they are sometimes used to hook up mobile CB/Ham radio sets) and place it in line of the power connection to the radio. Since your radio worked in the past without this filter, this doesn't really fix the problem, but will most likely get rid of the hash/noise.

Hope you get it.

Remco

Reply to
Remco

Those type of problems can be tricky to find. Something clearly changed in your car, since it worked before, right? This is not a new stereo that never sounded right, correct?

On older cars, the distributor had a little round thing hanging off the side called a condensor (really a capacitor), but your car probably does not have that. If it does, I'd replace it.

It could be a ground connection to the radio. Use a start boost cable and use the negative (don't bother with the positive at all) wire to bridge from the battery negative to the frame the radio is mounted to. If it now goes away, you have a loose ground somewhere. Also try that very same ground connection from the battery negative to various metal pieces of the engine (including the distributor) - it is all meant make contact to ground but could be that a correded nut/bolt is causing this to not happen.

It could be due to your distributor wires, rotor, cap going bad. I'd make sure they are seated right. To replace them and find out that it wasn't the problem is an expensive proposition, though.

If you can't make it go away, you could use an in line EMI/RFI power filter from Radio Shack (they are sometimes used to hook up mobile CB/Ham radio sets) and place it in line of the power connection to the radio. Since your radio worked in the past without this filter, this doesn't really fix the problem, but will most likely get rid of the hash/noise.

Hope you get it.

Remco

Reply to
Remco

Sorry about the double post -- google does this to me sometimes. Remco

Reply to
Remco

Sorry about replying to my own posts here, but I forgot to mention something that might help you:

It is important to determine if the interference is radiated or conducted. If it is radiated, most likely it is coming from the wires, coil, etc - something related to that subsystem.

Use a portable radio and see if you hear the very same hash/noise. If so, it is radiated.

If it is conducted, most likely something changed where current is now flowing where it wasn't flowing before. Most likely a bad ground or something like that.

Remco

Reply to
Remco

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