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Chopping Static in my Radios


Rmag

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On 6/3/2017 at 3:38 PM, N601RX said:

One of the coils may be breaking down and arcing between windings internally.  The new caps may have been able to hide it for a flight or so until the arcing got worse. 

Well we swapped out the 2007 capacitor with a 2017 capacitor.  Unlike the first time we replaced the capacitor, this time it had no effect at all.  He's thinking you may be on to something with the coil.

 

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Rs, Ls, and Cs

resistors, Inductors, and capacitors... things that gang up to cause funky and strange electrical effects...

Too much, too little, or broken and disconnected...

Some of these things have a shelf life, others wear over time...

seek an electrical engineer familiar with RLC circuits...

Sometimes noises are always being generated.  A ground may responsible for draining them.  The size of the ground pipe has to be good enough to drain the noise faster than it gets generated... too much resistance in the drain slows the flow...

check all the grounds, clean and replace as needed...?

The last place to look... the audio panel itself...

PP thoughts only, not an EE...  hoping to spark or generate some ideas...

Best regards,

-a-

Edited by carusoam
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On 6/9/2017 at 7:26 AM, Marauder said:

Grounds, grounds, grounds...

We ran separate grounding straps from the mag to the airframe and the engine to the airframe. Made no difference. 

We just put a brand new mag on the right side. And for the first time when I did a mag check the right mag was dead silent only the left one had the noise.   After I flew it for the first time the ticking noise came back even in the right side and stayed. 

Another very strange thing that happens is if I taxi to the middle of our airport the ticking goes away.  But at both ends of the airport or in-flight the ticking is there. 

I did read a Beechtalk Post  from a guy who had noises like this and he did not change his mag harness because it tested fine. After he changed it anyway his noise went away.  

My mag harness tests tests good but I'm thinking about changing this out now too.  Is there coneses who makes the best spark plug wires?  I have TCM/Bendix wires. 

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28 minutes ago, Rmag said:

We ran separate grounding straps from the mag to the airframe and the engine to the airframe. Made no difference. 

We just put a brand new mag on the right side. And for the first time when I did a mag check the right mag was dead silent only the left one had the noise.   After I flew it for the first time the ticking noise came back even in the right side and stayed. 

Another very strange thing that happens is if I taxi to the middle of our airport the ticking goes away.  But at both ends of the airport or in-flight the ticking is there. 

I did read a Beechtalk Post  from a guy who had noises like this and he did not change his mag harness because it tested fine. After he changed it anyway his noise went away.  

My mag harness tests tests good but I'm thinking about changing this out now too.  Is there coneses who makes the best spark plug wires?  I have TCM/Bendix wires. 

I went with the Kelly's from Aircraft Spruce. I changed out my spark plugs at the same time and went with the waterproof design. BTW - if the wires fix it, it's a grounding issue because the shielding failed ;) 

Some day you'll need to explain to me the mysterious Cape May trips you make. Beach house there? I was at my airport (N57) a couple times and saw you flying over head. 

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I'm about to order a new mag harness.  I think I'm going to go with the Kelly's.  My current symptom is when I last flew through heavy rain it got to the point of engine noise drowning out radio transmissions.  Out of the rain no issue.  I've inspected and the shielding was in bad shape at last annual but my IA said it wasn't worth changing the leads.  This year he says he agrees it's time. 

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3 hours ago, Marauder said:

I went with the Kelly's from Aircraft Spruce. I changed out my spark plugs at the same time and went with the waterproof design. BTW - if the wires fix it, it's a grounding issue because the shielding failed ;) 

Some day you'll need to explain to me the mysterious Cape May trips you make. Beach house there? I was at my airport (N57) a couple times and saw you flying over head. 

Good logical guess :)

I see planes show up on TIS-B over there almost every time I fly.  What's your N#?  You airborne or just stalking? ;) 

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Good logical guess
I see planes show up on TIS-B over there almost every time I fly.  What's your N#?  You airborne or just stalking?  


When I am at the airport, when I see a plane passing overhead, I pull up FlightAware to see where that lucky bast&$d is headed while I am waiting to get on my next TC.

There is this one Mooney that seems to fly directly over my airport on a regular basis. N6892V - but you won't see me flying to your airport with the landing fee there.


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Just now, Marauder said:

 


When I am at the airport, when I see a plane passing overhead, I pull up FlightAware to see where that lucky bast&$d is headed while I am waiting to get on my next TC.

There is this one Mooney that seems to fly directly over my airport on a regular basis. N6892V - but you won't see me flying to your airport with the landing fee there.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

 

he does that at home also when he's sitting on his back deck, then he post it on Mooney space :)

 

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Just now, Marauder said:

 


When I am at the airport, when I see a plane passing overhead, I pull up FlightAware to see where that lucky bast&$d is headed while I am waiting to get on my next TC.

There is this one Mooney that seems to fly directly over my airport on a regular basis. N6892V - but you won't see me flying to your airport with the landing fee there.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

 

If you are going to the restaurant there is no landing fee, or if your visiting the friendly folks at SureFlight :) 

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If you are going to the restaurant there is no landing fee, or if your visiting the friendly folks at SureFlight  


Those signature guys scared me off the last time I was there. They wanted me to sign some sort of disclaimer document. Wasn't going to happen.

And I mentioned to you when we met, they called me up one day I when I was shooting approaches and asked for my full N number. That wasn't going to happen either. Hope they don't think I am paying a fee to use the airspace


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  • 2 weeks later...
On 6/16/2017 at 4:45 PM, Marauder said:

BTW - if the wires fix it, it's a grounding issue because the shielding failed ;) 

We replaced the harness wires, problem solved.  After he took the originals off, he load tested them all, they still tested fine.  Then he tested ohms and found both R and L wires going to the #1 cylinder was not grounding properly.  He could move the end around and get intermittent ground, un-ground.

That is why when I got a mag taken on or off temporarily the problem went away.

On the L mag, the radio is now 100% crystal clear.  On the R mag, the radio receives strong transmissions (within 20 miles) crystal clear.  Weaker transmissions I can still hear a tiny bit of rpm static about 10% of what I had.  It is completely tolerable and I might not have even thought much about it if I want hyper sensitive to it now.  

 If it never changes beyond what I have now I am satisfied.  Any body know would could make it show up faintly receiving a weaker transmission on just the R mag only?

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We replaced the harness wires, problem solved.  After he took the originals off, he load tested them all, they still tested fine.  Then he tested ohms and found both R and L wires going to the #1 cylinder was not grounding properly.  He could move the end around and get intermittent ground, un-ground.
That is why when I got a mag taken on or off temporarily the problem went away.
On the L mag, the radio is now 100% crystal clear.  On the R mag, the radio receives strong transmissions (within 20 miles) crystal clear.  Weaker transmissions I can still hear a tiny bit of rpm static about 10% of what I had.  It is completely tolerable and I might not have even thought much about it if I want hyper sensitive to it now.  
 If it never changes beyond what I have now I am satisfied.  Any body know would could make it show up faintly receiving a weaker transmission on just the R mag only?


Glad to hear you found the root cause!


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  • 4 years later...

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