Hello, I have a bearcat police/fire scanner in my 79 F150. I also have a Jenson 200 watt amp. With the amp on, I get a whine from some of the stations on the scanner, at idle and a little higher. The whine follows the RPM. With the amp off, there is no whine at all. My question is were should I put the filter, on the amp, or on the scanner? The is no whine coming through the radio itself. I had a filter on the scanner before and it did not work. Maybe I had the wrong one. Any help would be helpful.

Thanks
Chad

 

Where do you have the amp hooked up? The main power wire should go directly to the battery with a inline fuse. If you have it hooked differently, this could cause a problem. Also, if you didn't mind manually turning the scanner off, hooking it directly to the battery should help the whining.

 

Make sure they are not grounded in the same location, unless you are using a distribution block. Make sure you have them on a good ground also, especially the Jenson. It will help your stereo also.

 

Thanks. I have a second fuse block. It is hooked to the battery itself and both are run off of this. Should I run a wire and separate the two? They are grounded separate.

Thanks again
Chad

 

What wire did you use for power ground?

I always use Coax cable(it's shielded) for running power to communication equipment.

Dennis https://www.ford-trucks.com/user_gallery/sizeimage.php?&photoid=1733&.jpg



Please Don't Ask Me Any Tough Questions,
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78 F-150 429CJ,Silver, Explorer Pkg.
641/2-Mustang 260,Pre-World's Fair Car.
64-Fairlane500 S/C waiting for a 390-4spd.
68-Mustang 289-Sunlit Gold 80,892Mi
78-Buick LeSabre 403 4V
84 Volvo DL Wagon

 

I just used 12 awg stranded wire. Never gave it a thought.

Thanks
Chad

 

I run 8 gauge wire for all my equipment. That way there plenty of wire fo rthe power to flow. You may want to at least put then Jenson on 8 gauge. On a 12 gauge wire, you may be getting some resistance from the Jenson trying to pull more power through the wire than it can. Since they are on the same dist. block, that could be it. What size wire is running from the battery to the block?

I run 4 gauge wire from the battery to my distr. block. I have a 4 gauge wire 9" long to a dist. block and grounded on the frame. Run 8 gauge from there.

 

Sorry about that. The amp is on 10 gauge fine strand wire that came in the kit. But I think the fuse block is only 12 though. This might explain why the amp doesn't go as loud as I thought it would. One of those things where your in a hurry and you use what you have. I think I will get some new wire and redo some of this. Thanks for all of the help.

Chad