Archive of BMW Motorrad Club Cape (2006 - 2019)

Andy, I have a supressor cap that might work, we can try it tomorrow morning.  Who knows, maybe I'll get some comms from you at Volume level 1

We'll try it Pete.

Thanks.

I realized I needed to properly ground the plate to the frame, which I did this evening. Tomorrow I'll se if there is a difference.

I need to listen to whether it is a staccato noise or whine to differentiate between a an alternator interference or an HT interference fom the coil.

Hoefully, proper grounding to the frame has fixed it already.

I tried the earth strap and it worked 100%, transmissions and 'range' immediately improved greatly

Clearly, just the base plate sans any good grounding to earth on the frame was an issue.

To test if it is grounded.

I took my auto-test lamp kit and connected the crocodile clamp to my external +ve node then tested by touching the needle on the frame, then top box, then the antenna ground-plate.

I got a light every time.

This lead me to realise my top-box lid is actually already  grounded to the frame via via via many connetive nuts n bolts mounting it to the bike.

so next step was a cunning stunt- I cut a o.75mm galv sheet to 150 x 100mm and atttached two springs and then attached this sheet  to the ground plate and voila, the springs kept the plate grounded to the topbox lid and thus the main frame.

Galv sheet, cut 100m X 1500mm form stuff I had lying aorund.

two springs bought from Benbel's lawnmower spare section.

antenna ground-plate held snugly by bungy

springs fastened to the galv sheet.

so I tossed the Earth strap as it does not look cool, even if it works well.

 drilling the antenna hole was a mission.

And i fixed my audio problem by removing the frequency deviation and opening it up to wide. Unlike ham radio operators all the bike radios are on a wide setting

The base plate worked very well on a longish overnight trip.

Very stable and good coms all round.