Whelen lightbar shuts off with RF

[Bill_G]

I got a call from one of our rural shops. A new Dodge Charger patrol car installed by the county - new Whelen lightbar turns off when the radio is keyed. VHF CDM1250 radio, approx 35w, antenna centered on the roof between the lightbar and the rear window about 12" behind from the lightbar. Fairly typical installation by an experienced group of people. Whelen hasn't responded to tech support requests (probably because of the holiday).

Any thoughts or experience? Known issues with Whelen products?

tia

[jackhackett]

Had a problem once with a whelen bar picking up RF from the antenna, opened up the bar and moved some wires in there around a bit and the problem went away.
You might try some of those clip on ferrites around some of the wires inside the bar.

[Bill_G]

Thanks for that. I recommended that yesterday. We'll see how far it gets. Apparently it is quite sensitive, and two new vehicles exhibit the same behavior.

[NickH]

Is it one of their newer WECAN controlled bars? We've had all kinds of RF problems with the WECAN bars here. Supposedly there's a newer Wecan control module that will help it.

-Nick

[Bill_G]

Is it one of their newer WECAN controlled bars? We've had all kinds of RF problems with the WECAN bars here. Supposedly there's a newer Wecan control module that will help it.

-Nick

I'll ask. Thanks.

[wema628]

had the same thing happen. i bet its a UHF radio. we just changed the ant to a gain and it got the rf above the light bar so alls well

[HLA]

ya a 5 watt portable will blow a GFCI too so maybe try to shield the internal electronics on the lightbar better

[rwo978]

Had a similar problem with a Liberty and UHF radio. Grounded the top of the frame to the bottom and the problem went away.

[Bill_G]

Thanks guys. I think he's got this fixed now, but I'll pass on the info.

[GlennD]

We had similar problems. Whelens response was too bad, move the antenna. We ended up with the 800Mhz data antenna close to the light bar and the UHF PD antenna close to the rear of the Black and Whites. Looks unbalanced but at least the bar does not turn off on a code 3 run when the Officer uses the radio!

[spectragod]

Had an LED bar that was not a WeCan, had RF problem, tracked it down to a bad I/O board inside the lightbar, got "W" to confess they had some issues with a few that got out. I didn't have time to jack around waiting to send out the board and wait for a replacement, I just moved the antenna, problem solved...... for now at least.

[WhelenTech]

If you are truly having issues with this and can supply better more detailed information than what is posted here I would be willing to try to assit you with troubleshooting the issues you might be having.

[Bill_G]

Excellent. Thanks Whelentech. You're a good resource to have here. It was not me with the problems. It was one of our techs in rural Washington forwarding a request for help from his local county customer. The current status is - they relocated the antenna after experimentation.

[WhelenTech]

Ok - in most cases and this technically can affect anyones equipment that utilizes microprocessors - moving the antenna away will solve the issue. The sad part of this very few actually check the radio spec and antenna conditions before just blaming the equipment.

My rule is rule the radio out first as its the most used piece of equipment in the normal patrol vehicle.
Then start working with the manf. of the equipment to try to pinpoint the potential RF issue...

Just an FYI - RF is very hard to truly pin issues too unless you have very expensive diagnostic tools. So to say its the cause with only guessing and no real facts is not really troubleshooting. Technically anything or everyting has the potential to fail becase of RF - it just matters the ammount.

[spectragod]

Ok - in most cases and this technically can affect anyones equipment that utilizes microprocessors - moving the antenna away will solve the issue. The sad part of this very few actually check the radio spec and antenna conditions before just blaming the equipment.

My rule is rule the radio out first as its the most used piece of equipment in the normal patrol vehicle.
Then start working with the manf. of the equipment to try to pinpoint the potential RF issue...

Just an FYI - RF is very hard to truly pin issues too unless you have very expensive diagnostic tools. So to say its the cause with only guessing and no real facts is not really troubleshooting. Technically anything or everyting has the potential to fail becase of RF - it just matters the ammount.

It's not hard to single out a piece of equipment, the I/O board in my case was getting RF into it and causing the lightbar to have a mind of it's own. The only way the factory would warranty it was to pull the bar apart and send the I/O board in, being that it was a small department (3 cars) I was not going to take 33.333333% of his fleet out of service for whatever the turnover would be, plus 2 service calls.

Antenna/coax/radio all checked out with a R-2670, the problem was the I/O, a -W- tech advised that they had some issues with a "batch".

And while your on here, you need to update you we-can software download off your site, last time I checked, it wasn't current.

[WhelenTech]

The site is not setup to provide latest updates to customers that is what calling Whelen is for... I supply one version older for service only in most cases.

[diogini]

Is the radio and Whelen lightbar sharing the same ground location? I would suggest moving the radio directly to the ground terminal of the vehicle battery.

[spectragod]

Is the radio and Whelen lightbar sharing the same ground location? I would suggest moving the radio directly to the ground terminal of the vehicle battery.

Yep, they both share the same ground location, the battery. Odd that the other cars in his fleet are not having the same issue, same radio/lightbar/siren combination.

The problem was diagnosed to the I/O board in my case, but then again, what do I know?

[Monitor142]

Sheesh Glenn, Long Beach has been using Whelen emergency lights on all their vehicles (PD, FD, Public Services) since christ was a pup. That's pretty sad that their resolution is/was to "move the antenna." Oh well, you could run a dummy load on your mobiles and still get in fine to your excellent VHF/UHF systems!

[Bill_G]

I far prefer to install high band ant on tmb off the front fender, and have the radio freak out the fuel injection, anti-lock brakes, or something else unessential on the vehicle. You know ... I'm just sayin ...

Remember when antennas on the rear trunk deck would cause the back speakers on an Impala cruiser to launch themselves with a big gigantic BUMP sound every time you keyed? Laugh a minute. Them were the good old days.