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First, rule out the car itself by having everything installed but the empeg pulled out of the sled. Get the car engine running and see if the scanner works acceptably in the dash. If it doesn't work, then it's got nothing to do with the empeg, it's the car or the wiring.


The scanner worked great when the previous radio was installed. It also work on top of the dash, thus ruling out the car.
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Then rule out the tuner module by de-installing it completely.


This was my next move, but being as it is a major pain, I posted to get a second opinion.
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Next, rule out ground loops by disconnecting the RCA cables of various components and seeing if the problem clears up when you do.


Definitely not a ground loop issue. All grounds are to a grounding block and when removed all RCA cables, probem is still there.
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This will allow you to see the difference between the "empeg on standby" and the "empeg fully off" modes.
If the scanner gets better when the empeg goes into standby, then you've got some kind of crosstalk in your wiring. For instance, maybe your scanner antenna runs along next to your amplifier power cable.
If the scanner gets better when the empeg goes into full power-off mode, then it's RF interference from the empeg's CPU, electronics, and/or hard disks. Note that the empeg passes FCC regulations for a car stereo, so it's "within spec" and there's nothing that can be done about it. However you could work around it by leaving the empeg's timeout really short and figuring out a way to shut it off when you use the scanner.


Maybe I should have added to my original post that this happens when the empeg is fully out of the sled (and in the house). So, I have completely ruled out it being interference from the actual empeg. In addition, I did ran the scanner antenna down the right side of the car, the speaker and rca wire down the middle, and the power down the left. This should minimize or remove any wire interference.
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Maybe it's something as simple as changing the order of the items in the dash (put the OTHER unit on top instead of the bottom). Perhaps that would be enough to change the RF fields in the dash so that it works acceptably.


I was thinking about this as well, but will leave as a last resort, as I doubt this is the cause. Although, it might be nice to have the empeg higher in the dash anyway....

The only thing you didn't mention that I haven't tried is removing the sled completely and leaving the tuner module in there. This, in conjunction with the other test, taking the tuner out, would maybe isolate the problem. I just know how much of a pain the sled will be to remove due to some barely long enough speaker wires, but if I am going to have the car apart, I might as well rewire the speakers...

Tony, thanks for the input. It seems you basically confirmed my thoughts on needing to rip the car apart again....Oh well, here goes another Saturday


//== MK2 20 GB Single Drive, Green Face Plate Currently installed in Toyota Solara ==\\
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//== MK2 Rio Car 20 GB Single Drive ==\\