Problem with “trolling and talking”!!!!

OK, smart fella’s, you guys helped Chappy and Eye Guide with electric problems, Try and give me a theory on why this happens.
I have a 24V Vantage troller on the back of my Warrior. Last year, I installed a new marine band radio. I wired the radio to the fuse block, which all of you know, gets its power from the starter battery. Everything works great, until I am backtrolling and Chappy calls me and asks if I have any food left in my cooler! When I depress the button on the mike, to tell him no, the troller cuts out, as if you killed the power. When I let off, the troller goes back to normal, as if nothing happened.
Being the smart fella that I am,(?), I figured I would out smart the troller, by wiring the radio directly to the starter battery. After much cussing last night, I got that accomplished. I then procedded to plug in, and turn on the troller, turn on the radio, and key the mike. Same problem!!! Now this is not life threatening, but it does drive me nuts!!
If you guys can figure this one out, then you should all gather in a room and figure out “cold fusion”, and “perpetual motion”. I will only take 10% in royalities for getting you started in this adventure!!!

Smart

wrap your trolling motor in tinfoil
Seriously…..
Sounds like your problem is EMC.
Electro Magnetic Compatibility
Install some ferrite cores on any/all wires going to the trolling motor. This will eliminate the radio frequency interference that you are experiencing. If that does not do it try to connect your radio to another power source (different battrie) and run your test again. If your battrie is marginal the load from the radios transmitter may be dragging the voltage down enough to kick out the trolling motor.

Have Fne!

you could also connect the radio to a different battery.
“Battries” may be hard to find this time of year!

Help! Send fast!!!

Easy fix!

Don’t respond to Chappy….

Ok,

I’m assuming that your radio is connected to the starting battery and your trolling motor is connected to a trolling motor battery.

If the above is correct, it’s unlikely that your radio is “pulling down” the voltage on your trolling motor battery…which would make it slow down/stop.

So…we have to assume it’s the radio frequency interferance.
The RF chokes would likely work as mentioned above…but I would try a couple other things first (IMO).

You should have a “low” power setting on your radio…1 watt. Change it to that see if you have the same problem.

If your antenna is close to your trolling motor or (less likely) the power wires to the trolling motor, this could be your source of interferance. Move your antena further away from your trolling motor. If your power cord for the TM is close to the antenna, wrap the old aluminum foil around the TM power cord covering about 4 feet on either side of the antenna. If you notice it improve, you’ll need to run this power cord on the other side of the boat …or again move the antenna.

Also check with the TM manufacturer, sometimes they have filters for this.

One last thing…you have a fiberglass boat…how do you have your antenna mounted? Is it grounded? If not, your SWR might be high which would bleed into your TM.

Good Luck! Hope that helps…

good call Briank

Very good answers Brian! I think you might be onto something with the Anntena too close to the TM . I think they’re only a couple feet apart.As for the don’t talk to Chappy comment……… I’ll ignore you said that!

If it’s a 24 volt Vantage, it still may be connected to the starting battery for the deploy feature, which is 12 volt I believe.

Could this be causing the problem?

Thanks, fella’s. I do know that there is RF interferance. Wrapping the TM head w/ tin foil sounds cool, but that sounds like something Chappy would do!! Sorry, Chap! Had to blast ya! And also, the antenna IS mounted close to the TM. And to make matters worse, the antenna wire, and the power wires for the TM are in very close proxcimity, if not, touching each other, under the rear starboard gunnel. Before mounting the antenna, I asked myself, where would be the area least likely to interfer with fighting a big fish. (OK Chappy, there’s your chance to get me back!) I know that I am not going to move the antenna. Too many holes, (read: gadgets!), in the boat already! Will operating the radio on low power, decrease it’s performance? I would think that it would. Lord knows that if Chappy is out there, I want to be on the other side of the lake! (Premptive strike, Chap!) The antenna is grounded, and was very tricky in soldering the cable to the mounting base, so I had a “pro” help me.
Looks like the only two options are, investigate this “choke” thing, or live with it! I will also check with Minn Kota to see if they have any advice.
Thanks fella’s.

Now on with “Cold Fusion”!

For chokes, check out your local Radio Shack. They7 have chkes that use a material called Ferrite which is amazing stuff. You cna find these things with plastic holders so you can simply snap them over the wire. You might have to experiment with the best place on the trolling motor line to place the choke, but in general the closer you get this thing to the trolling motor head the better.

Rootski

I’m not even going to respond to those slanderous things your saying about me Riv! Just make sure your insurance is up to date next time I see you on the water!

The deploy lead is 12 volt on the vantage. I would connect that also to the trolling motor battery instead of the starting battery if not already done.

Brad

Quote:

---

Easy fix!

Don’t respond to Chappy….

---

I see that you also thought this was the obvious choice. If not that, could you find a channel that Chappy is not on, and try it again?

VHF does weird things. Like I said, in my garage, it cuts out the radio station plugged into my wall!

I don’t know why I’m involved in this!!! I know when I key my mike the boom box kick’s out. But…..People can still hear me!!!!!

Ok, so if a tree falls in the forest, and nobody is there…would Chappy still hear it?

Sort of on the same track here…

Only when I’m on the river…never in my driveway….I’ve noticed that when I key my mic my wife gets increasingly crabby….the more I key up…the more I catch….

My work around so far has been to leaver her at home…but then it seems like it gets all bottled up and catch more when I get home….

Well, sent an e-mail off to Minnkota to see if they had an answer. They did. You guy’s were right in I probably have the antenna to close to the TM. They said that the 25 watt power generated during transmit is effecting circuits in the maximizer built into the TM unit! They also said that “ferrite chokes” would not work. (Although, if some of you have tried this for a similar situation, I would like to hear about it!) They suggested that I move the antenna to another part of the boat.
Oh well, thanks for the suggestions. Looks like I will have to quit trolling when Chappy calls looking for food, fish, or soakers!

Since I am on my second Warrior, Maybe I can try and help solve the problem,the fuse block that the radio is hooked too, is it a self installed or the one behind the dash for all instrumentation. If it is the dash that harness has a main power switch with a 15 amp rating, so I would wire to a fuse block mounted on a side wall its own fuse block and run six gauge from the starter battery up to it.
Second now that the radio is wired on its own circuit and not sharing, the 2 trolling motor batteries have a power wire from a jumper circuit that allows charging from the alternator while the big engine is used, therefore remove the terminals that is from the starter battery to each of the trolling motor batteries terminals it actually comes from the terminal block that connects front and rear sockets or remove the red and black wire that runs to that terminal block from the starter battery , what my thought is your actually hooked somehow to the starter battery with your trolling plug, either because your plugging into the wrong socket or leaving the jumper in when using the trolling motor, not sure which model warrior you have, the Vantage backtroller, can go on any model, but by removing the terminals that could possibly connect it to the starter battery and making sure your marinco plug is proper, plugging into the correct socket will isolate and seperate radio from trolling motor, are all batteries in the same area, its possible to have accidently hooked the wrong set for each of the batteries, since they are color coded and taped together, in the east metro if needed.