i-MiEV and hamradio or CB-radio

Just tried my antenna that clips onto the window today. The window is far too thin.

Battery is great. It is almost impossible to drain the battery but you might have to keep the key in the lock and turned to "Ready".

With hamradio your range might exceed the range of your batteries but CB might be right to find somebody offering you a charge when in need.

Any ideas?

Use a magnetically mounted antenna?

Don

I have yet to use anything but my handheld 2m/70cm in the iMiEV. For some reason, I have a problem installing a VHF/UHF mobile in a car with only 70 miles of range- most of my driving is within HT range of a repeater.

I suppose I could move my Icom dual-band mobile to the i with a magmount if I were going on a longer trip (such as the potential summer 2013 Ontario MiEV campout that has been mentioned elsewhere). I've gotten spoiled with my VW's which have 12V outlets in the trunk so I can remote-faceplate the rig. In the MiEV, would have to figure an alternate, less glamorous solution (and my Icom IC-800D isn't that small).

As far as HF mobile, I'm wondering how much RF noise the drivetrain makes under way? Have you experimented with that? I haven't run HF mobile in more than 10 years- used to run my IC-706 into an Outbacker mounted on the side of my pickup truck. My VW's aren't as conducive to big antenna installations!

73 de NT2W
Rich

ps- since this is "off topic" I'll share a funny story from my days driving my Zap Xebra EV- my radio club had event at a public park and while we were setting up, I plugged the Xebra into the mains to catch a little charge. The ham who was setting up complained that the conditions were terrible, he couldn't hear any signals on any HF band. I then unplugged the Xebra, and "conditions" improved dramatically---- the RF interference from the factory charger was terrible! My experience with the iMiEV is limited, but I believe there is some QRM on the low bands (at least 80m) from the charger, but nothing like the Chinese charger in the Zap...

:? Wow, that's a lot more complex than I imagined a fixed-gear reduction unit would be! No clue on the parking pawl yet.

Long time ago and not much news - except there is very little noise from our i-MiEV compared to the noise of passing cars.

Our European i-MiEV has a very short antenna above the windscreen. I do have a dualband antenna for 2m and 70cm about the same sice.

The antenna obviously is rather short for am and our radio is rather short on receiving either 150 kHz - 300 kHz or 520 kHz - 1600 kHz. I do hear the motor inverter sometimes but barely. Same goes for my hearing aids, telecoil mode. I can hear other cars but not ours. I dont hear anything in the radio on FM except motor bikes passing.

I had another look at the ceiling, not because of the antenna but because of isolating. I have isolated the doors and now I am attaking the trunk lid. I am sure removing the roof liner is worth the trouble. Without the liner I can easily look at the antenna.

With an SO-239 UHF socket water might get in and I do not know how that water gets out again. I do not trust the radio antenna either. It is living close to the mirror and I can tilt it so it is almost flat to the roof. I have heard about trouble with this antenna. Corrosion I guess.

I am looking for a receiver only right now. Most mobile radios are to heavy on the poor little battery. After finding something interesting I can use my little Baofeng UV-3R radio for two or seventy. It has got its own lithium battery after all.

Cheers
Peter and Karin

Done some more experiments with radio and batteries.

There used to be some noises out of the hood that covers the radio. Longwave 150 kHz to some 300 kHz used to be bad and went out when the motor was running. AM band dead.

Opening the hood (our radio is mounted into the hood not the dashboard) I found a dangling black ground wire that was making noise. Adding a cable and shoe I connected the cable to ground via one of two screws fixing the dashboard right under the hood for the radio. The hood is made of plastic and the only ground connection was made via the antenna cable. After the modification longwave is fine and working even when the car is moving. FM improved as well, only AM stays dead.

I tried FM CB Radio with a magnetic mount antenna some 70 centimeters long. (rather short) At least I can receive and the motor does not interfer.

I did try a shortwave broadcast receiver but my bluetooth NAV dongle makes a lot of noise even when switched off.

Compared to ICE cars the i-MiEV seems to be very silent, electrically.

73
Peter and Karin

Wow. Managed to find this relatively ancient post with ease. Got to love the "search user's posts" button .

Peter, I'm not sure if you are still very active on this forum or not, but I was hoping to pick your brain a little. I just put a CB radio in my i-MiEV. I'm using a magnetic mount antenna just ahead of the radio antenna (US i-MiEVs have the antenna near the rear hatch) and snuck the cable down through the hatch and up underneath the interior trim along the floor. The radio works pretty well, but I get a lot of noise from the 12 volt system. I figured it was dirty power coming in, so I tried listening to the CB on the way to work while it was plugged into a separate battery pack. I still had the noise from the 12 volt system.

The funny thing is, if I have the CB on with the key in ACC, there is almost no noise from the car, but as soon as I turn the key on (without going to READY), the meter jumps to 8 db received and all the noise comes back. It is a little worse while in READY when the DC-DC converter is on, but the noise mostly comes from the 12 volt circuit that powers the windows.

My first solution was to power the CB with a separate battery and small solar panel, but given that the radio still receives the noise, is there some way to make the i-MiEV's 12 volt system quieter? Would a bank of various capacitors tied onto the battery help to filter out the noise (which I guess comes from all of the relays)? Or could it be as simple as re-routing the antenna cable? (US CB radios run around 27 MHz on AM. Single side-band units are also available if those aren't as prone to interference).

Thanks.