E1301: Shocking! Toyota Prius BANS Ham Radios?! - podcast episode cover

E1301: Shocking! Toyota Prius BANS Ham Radios?!

Feb 23, 20249 min
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Episode description

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/ham-radio-2-0--2042782/support.

These Reddit stories are always fun. This one comes from a poster who found that mounting a radio antenna into his Toyota Prius will void the warranty. The follow-up article was the best part!
SPONSOR: Save 20% on all LDG Electronics Items during Hamcation of 2024 - https://gigaparts.com/ldg
Original Article Link - https://www.reddit.com/r/amateurradio/comments/1af3jsc/ham_radio_banned_from_prius/
2nd article https://www.reddit.com/r/amateurradio/comments/1afwuxr/saw_the_prius_banning_ham_radio_post_heres_mazda/

Transcript

Thank you for choosing to download the ham Radio two point zero audio podcast rip. This is the audio taken out of a video or a livestream I did recently. You can catch all my videos on YouTube Ham Radio two point zero and catch us live every Sunday night at seven pm Central Standard Time for a different topic each week. Thank you for the support, and thank you for

being a member of the community. What if you bought a new car and the owner's manual told you you could not install any communications or radio equipment whatsoever? I'm I might, I might return the car myself. This is another Reddit article, and I love these Reddit articles. They're so fun because they're like what the QRZ forum should be in my opinion. So this guy posted and this is from rf ncc ron in seven z M. There we go,

right there. Okay. In November of last year, I bought a twenty twenty four Toyota Prius l E. I always read the manual, read the manual to any new car. To my surprise, I found that any installation of communications radio will avoid all warranties. What I can't believe that Japan, with its big amount of amateur radio operators, would design a car that avoids all installations. What a major letdown. I've always operated mobile ever since

my general license in nineteen eighty. I'm now stuck. Unless I trade it in and take my losses, well, I would return the car. I mean, surely they have some sort of grace period. I don't know. If your thinking about buying a hybrid and want to operate radio, you better read its manual first. I also purchased Toyota's long term warranty, so that's another four thousand dollars. I could lose that in a trade if so.

If I so choose, Toyota is not my favorite car anymore. A loss for them run in seven z M. I'm sorry that that happened to you. Ron. I don't personally understand why anyone would want a Prius, but that's me not trying to say anything bad about it. I don't mind electric cars, I just don't understand the Prius. I think that probably be like the last car I would ever want as far as evs go. But that's that's my that's my personal opinion, okay, And the first comments it's is

one of the best ones. Uh installation quote, so your workaround is just to not install, which I read as a placement on a permanent basis as opposed to bringing it with you easily somewhat easily removable. Given that I've seen more than a few really bad installs and modern vehicles with a BMS, I think that a removal installation is a good approach. Plenty of good info in these types of installs, so basically a man pack and seat something like that.

Here's a guy with a picture of a mobile radio in his vehicle installation. I don't know where that is, but yeah, that's that. That is kind of lame that a vehicle manufacturer would prevent you or prohibit you from installing basically what you wanted into your own vehicle. I understand the warranty thing, but if you had it professionally installed, maybe there should be a caveat in there having it professionally installed. I don't know that that might be a

thing. I read an article a couple of years ago. I think it was about how AM radio did not work in a Tesla and people were upset that AM radio was not working in a Tesla, and I'm like, well, of course it doesn't. It's the Tesla is probably an RFI amplifier. It's because of all the RFI. An electric car produces a lot of RFI.

You can find videos on YouTube about how to install an HF radio and what extra steps you have to take because a normal vehicle has a lot of RFI and a lot of engine noise and a lot of this crap that produces noise inside of your HF radio. But Tesla's don't even have AM radios because you can't hear it. And there was some people upset about that, and I had two I had two thoughts on that. Number One, who still listens to terrestrial AM radio? It doesn't seem like something a Tesla owner would

be interested in listening to satellite radio, sure terrestrial AM radio. I mean, does anyone listen to that? I don't know. Two. Yeah, that just proves that Tesla needs to upgrade their game on reducing RFI. Okay, so Tesla's are RFI noisy again, most EV vehicles are p RFI noisy.

I have seen several YouTube videos about people installing HF radios in their evs and they had to take a few extra steps because of all the RFI and the noise and the electrical components and perhaps poor grounding on some battery installations. I don't know the best part about this story. The best part about this story is that there was a follow up. There was a follow up to that article that was posted like, I don't know, like a month later,

and this is pretty cool. But first, let me tell you that LDG Electronics is sponsoring this video. If you are planning to attend hamcashon twenty twenty four, I will be there. Come by the Gigabarts booth and take advantage of ldg's twenty percent off sale during ham Cash twenty twenty four in Orlando, Florida. I'll be walking around recording video talking to people. If you

see me, come by and say hello. But be sure to check out LDG electronics twenty percent off sale and thank Gigaparts and thank LDG who will be at the Gigabarts booth for supporting this channel. This was posted sixteen hours ago. At the time of this recording, saw the preus banning Hamry Radio post. Here's Mazda telling you where you can place your antennas. L Well,

so this is pretty cool right here. Your Mazda has been tested and certified with N r asterisk one ten regulation as related to electoral magnetic compatibility radio frequency RF transmitter equipped cellular telephones, amateur radio transmitters, et cetera. It actually says amateur radio's transmitters in their owner's manual for a Mazda, I don't know which Mazda. The model this is may only be fitted to your Mazda if

they comply with the perimeter shown in the table below. You. In our stands for United Nations regulation, it's your responsibility to show that any equipment you have fitted complies with applicable local legislations. Have any equipment fitted by properly trained technicians, see this is what? Okay? So have it professionally installed or have it installed correctly. Don't do a haphazard job of it and just lay it on the seat and plug it in the cigarette lighter or put a false

ground somewhere. Okay. Really bad installations sometimes. Do not mount any transceiver, microphone speakers to any other item in the deployment path of the air bag system. Good advice, Good advice. Do not fasten aerial lead to original vehicle wiring, fuel pipes, or brake pipes. Avoid running the aerial aerial Oh, the antenna, Okay, the intenna lead parallel to the wire harness to the best extent possible. Keep the aerial and power leads at least one

hundred millimeters three point nine inches from any electronic modules or air bags. Okay. Avoid using the cigar lighter. There we go. It's a cigar lighter. Now very important. I want a car with a cigar lighter. I'd be okay with that. Avoid using the cigar lighter to or accessory socket as a power source for RF transmitting equipment. Yeah, that's actually good advice. This is very very good advice. Okay. Down here it says twenty twenty

three mos to three hatch. No mention of HF though, And it has this this aerial position center right roof over here on the right hand side of this page. Center of roof, right rear, right of roof, rear left of roof, you know, and it gives you frequencies from fifty megahertz up to two point four gigahertz maximum power out and some other stuff you can't

really see on the page. There some actual some actual actual legit. How to install a radio and antenna in your car from the Owner's Manual of Mazda. That is that is pretty cool. I'm I'm I'm in favor of that. That's that's that's really fun stuff. So back to the power out of the power socket or the cigar lighter as they call it. Yeah, you don't want to do that typically because a lot of radios pull more ampage than

what the cigarette lighter adapter will allow. And I have personally found that plugging your radio in via cigarette lighter adapter cause you to hear more engine or alternator noise in your radio, even on VHF UHF most of the time, if you key up a VHF repeter, once you let go of the mic and that squelch tail and courtesy tone or maybe maybe id of the repeater when that is being received by your radio, you might hear some alternator and wine noise

in your in your radio while the squelch is open and you're receiving signals from the repeater, or if someone else is talking on the repeater and you're receiving it, you might hear some wine. And if you have your radio plugged in via cigarette lighter adapt or, that might be why those are not grounded

very well. Usually it doesn't have a direct path to the battery and a direct path to ground, so it's not as good as wiring up the radio with a direct positively directly to the battery and the shortest ground lead to a good ground on the frame of the car as the shortest lead as possible. So that is the thing. So if you have wine in your radio, what is plugged in a cigarette lader? That could be why so, who here has an EV and what extra steps have you put a radio in it?

Have you put a radio in your electric video? And if so, what extra steps did you take to do that? I would like to know how you accomplished it. And I'd like to see hey record a short video and email it to me. I'd like to see that. Seventy three

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