Static caused by usb plug?

[RL616]

I really hate that I know so little about these things...I am really thankful to you guys for sharing your knowledge. I got my setup....well....set up finally. Galaxy DX959, 18ft coax, 4" spring and 102" stainless steel whip. It is mounted to my headache rack currently. Power for the radio is routed through the factory "upfitter" switches in my 2013 F-350.

I understand that I will get some noise through the radio. Turn up the squelch and its good. I plug the USB doohickey into the cigarette lighter so I can charge my phone, and the radio goes bananas. At LEAST double the squelch to shut it up. Unplug the widget and it goes away. Is this normal? Do I need to hook the radio up differently? I am not understanding how that interferes with my receive signal?

 

[sp5it]

Trash that charger and buy quality one.
Or... build linear 5V charger.

12V to 5V converter | Step down DC regulator in many ways to do

12V to 5V converter step down regulator in many ways. To convert 12V source to 5V DC supply for digital circuit, microcontroller and More!

www.eleccircuit.com

Mike

 

[AudioShockwav]

Yes, Mike is correct, those cheap little cigarette lighter plug phone chargers are notorious for creating hash in your receiver.
73
Jeff

 

[TM86]

I really hate that I know so little about these things...I am really thankful to you guys for sharing your knowledge. I got my setup....well....set up finally. Galaxy DX959, 18ft coax, 4" spring and 102" stainless steel whip. It is mounted to my headache rack currently. Power for the radio is routed through the factory "upfitter" switches in my 2013 F-350.

I understand that I will get some noise through the radio. Turn up the squelch and its good. I plug the USB doohickey into the cigarette lighter so I can charge my phone, and the radio goes bananas. At LEAST double the squelch to shut it up. Unplug the widget and it goes away. Is this normal? Do I need to hook the radio up differently? I am not understanding how that interferes with my receive signal?

The USB doohickey is probably using some sort of buck-boost converter to take the 12 Volts from your cigarette lighter and turn that into 5 Volts. Buck-boost converters work by taking DC, turning it into AC, then back into DC at a different voltage than what was originally put in. It allows the voltage conversion to be done in a much smaller package than a linear regulator, because it generates less heat. If it's a cheap design, it will spew all kinds of RF noise, which will then be picked up by your radio.

Which is why sp5it made the recommendation he did.

So, yes, it's normal for that particular USB doohickey. Most likely anything in the same price range will do the same thing. You can either live with it or research a better option. The link sp5it gave you is a good place to start for a linear regulator if you like to roll your own or just like to learn new things.

 

[RL616]

Thank you to all of you. Researching better options now.