Kenwood/Whelen Conflict

[NoCoFire]

I have a tk-7360-hvk with a whelen 295hfsal mounted below the radio. The siren controller was installed about two weeks ago. Just this weekend after using the siren I have developed a "birdie" or spurious emission on 154.250 which is also one of our simplex fire ground frequencies. Squelch level is set at 5 for all channels and I am not sure if you can individualize squelch settings per channel - or even if that would help (I would actually prefer to keep the setting at 5 as this is an important channel for me). If I shut off the siren controller it goes away but obviously there are times when they both need to be on and I need to scan channels, and/or operate on 154.250. Any suggestions on fixing this?

...on the plus side the installation is neat and tidy

thanks for your suggestions

NoCoFire

 

[ramal121]

Well that's a bummer +1. I remember a PD that used an all-in-one lighting controller on their vehicles. Seems the pulsed triac circuit that ran the wig-wags threw out all kinds of hash, mostly on their main VHF channel. Turn the wig-wags off the radio was clear as a bell.

Don't know what to tell you other than to invoke the FCC rule part 15 which basically states to separate the offending device from the offendee device by distance to reduce interference.

I did also have at one time a have a Federal Signal lightbar (halogen rotators) that just wiped out a VHF signal down to the point of only a block or two on direct. FS was cordial and sent as no charge new drive motors with a RFI cap installed and these cleared up the problem.

No problem with the radio and I see why you want to keep the squelch as is. Maybe contact Whelen support and see if they could help.

 

[PJH]

Ground, ground and ground. Are you using a common feed for both sets of equipment? Also how is the RF cable to the radio? That line of Kenwoods has a bunch of features, however they don't have the world's greatest amount of shielding internally.