hi yall...well you know i have HID headlights and fog lights. I also have a CB radio in the truck. Well the HID ballasts and all that good stuff creates SO MUCH noise that it renders my CB almost useless at nighttime.

Does anyone have any suggestions to tune the radio differently?

I had an I dea to maybe wrap the headlight and foglight units in foil so that it would shield the signals from heading outward but im not sure if that would help, but it's the same concept practiced when making coaxial cable, what do yall think?

 

Well the concept is correct, but to get enough shielding in such a small area, it would almost be pointless because your going to have a considerable amount of wrap on there.

There is an option that we use on radios when they are picking up static... try running a couple "extra" grounds, I say extra by creating a couple extra grounding points (seat, floor, stuff like that) and running them into the ground on the CB. Give that a try and I'll ask the radio guys here as well.

 

Talked to the guys in my shop, we all agree try the extra grounding points. If that doesn't help, let me know and I'll bust out some equipment here and "play" . lol

 

i used a noise suppressor similar to this. it took out the engine rpm whine/static that was coming through on my cb. i think you get what you pay for on these. i had a $5 unit that worked for a little while, then became ineffective. i bought another, slightly more expensive one for 20-30 and its held up.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Bandit-NF-40-20-...1%7C240%3A1318

 

Have you tried to go to a truck stop like a T/A or Petro? I know they sell suppressors. Just a throught.

 

you should run at least 10 gauge for ground and make sure that it's connected to a solid, paint removed section of metal, preferably near or on the chassis. Another thing is to keep the ground cable short as possible, 8" or less if you can.
I once had crazy noise problems running an amp and kicker box in a Nissan Sentra, and when the lights were turned on the noise quadrupled.
After shortening the ground and grinding the paint off at both the amp ground connection as well as the main battery ground connection, the noise was almost gone.
To get rid of it completely I used heavily shielded RCA cables and that did the trick.
BUT - due to the ballasts in the HIDs, you might just be screwed - sometimes electrical components simply "dirty" up the power... do you run a stock or aftermarket radio?
curious how that sounds...

 

my radio is stock. but my CB is grounded and yes i make sure I ground things correctly. But what I'm going to do is see if i can move the grounding point and see what happens, ground it to my lightbar instead of the roof (all the wires are inside at this point).

Thanks for the input, and also that noise supressor might work a little bit. My wire for the antenna is shielded, but remember since the antenna has to put out power and receive it can't be "shielded" or then that just renders the point of acb useless haha.

So i'll try out those things see if that helps.

 

Let me know if you figure it out. I am still thinking about going with all HID's, what ones do you have? how do you like them?