Radio interference

No you got it wrong that's all party political stuff; sounds the same though.

So Liam was, like

Long time since I did any of this, but IIRC you fit a small capacitor (about

1 microfarad) across each of the components causing the interference - size of capacitor to be determined by trial and error. As far as I know there is nothing you can do to "filter" the power supply to the radio - it's the other components that are causing the problem.

An expert will be along shortly, I am sure.

Depending where the radio is picking it up, a filter on the radio power supply may be useful, but it is most likely you will have to attack the problem at each noise generating motor, although if you get it on tape it is clearly coming through the power leads as well and you may have to do both. As Richard says, a small capacitor to earth as close as possible to each motor is the way to go. There are special coaxial capacitors for the purpose available from any car radio installer, and probably many auto electricians. A contributory problem is that most older Landrovers will provide poor electromagnetic shielding because the panels are not electrically well connected, and light bonding cables between the various panels may help. Another help may be to fit a larger aerial, but if you are remote from the station you want to listen to, this won't help much unless the one you have is pretty poor, and will do little about noise coming along the wiring.

I'd just give up if I were you. Mine is just the same, and you can't hear it for the noise most of the time anyway.

I think I will give the capacitors a try (one day) its just the wipers and heater motors that are really bad and the wiring for them is easy to get at.

So the capacitor is connected between the live feed to the motor and earth?

Thanks

Liam

See, I told you.

Rich

So Liam was, like

Yup.

Hi Liam, you don't mention where you are getting the power for the radio from. You may find that you get less noise if you run directly off the battery. This way you are reducing the inherent noice that is already in the system from being picked up.

You may also like to try the suppressed spark plug and HT leads that you can get these days.

I think with a S3 you will find a lot of little fixes help. Given that the aluminium body isn't that well "earthed", try running small extra earth leads between the bonnet and the firewall, and any other large area panels that are near your radio and its aerial. Don't forget to do the windscreen (it may already be done-if so clean up the connections that are already there).

Is also a good idea to check the routing of some of your existing problem areas (fans etc) and make sure that you don't run your radio wires along side these "noise sources".

Cheers

Phillip Simpson

The power for the radio come from the same strip of fuses as for all the switched live circuits, I'll give the direct feed from battery a try as a few people have suggested this also. The wires are all bundled together like a bowl of spaghetti, one day I'll get round to tidying it up. The first thing I tried was to earth everything together, made no difference.

Thanks

Liam