antenna electrical problem?
Thread Starter
Racer
Joined: May 2000
Posts: 443
Likes: 3
From: Thurmont MD
antenna electrical problem?
I have an 86 vert with aftermaret eclipse radio. When I purchased it the antenna relay was missing therefore it did not work. Stereo worked fine, but did not get very good reception because of the antenna being down. Bought a new relay and plugged it in and the antenna went up. after a few seconds the stereo turned off by itself and the antenna retracted? I turned car off/on again and stereo started acting weird and turning on/off until I unplugged the antenna wires from the relay? No fuses blew and the stereo worked fine again once the antenna wires were unplugged from the relay.
Does this make sense... Since the relay was plugged in to the stereo side when it worked, the wiring for the head unit through the relay should be fine. You could hear the relay click when the radio would turn on and everthing worked fine with the antenna side unplugged.
I am assuming there is maybe a short in the antenna unit itself?
any thoughts?
[Modified by rgarrett, 3:53 PM 10/9/2003]
Does this make sense... Since the relay was plugged in to the stereo side when it worked, the wiring for the head unit through the relay should be fine. You could hear the relay click when the radio would turn on and everthing worked fine with the antenna side unplugged.
I am assuming there is maybe a short in the antenna unit itself?
any thoughts?
[Modified by rgarrett, 3:53 PM 10/9/2003]
Team Owner
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 54,124
Likes: 30
From: Cincinnati, Oh USA
Re: antenna electrical problem? (rgarrett)
The antenna relay reverses polarity on the antenna motor to retract the antenna. I doubt the motor current is different depending on its direction, but something is clearly wrong if you can repeat the defect by plugging in the relay and operating the radio. I would unplug the relay and jump 12v to the motor while measuring the supply current to see if the problem is in the antenna motor both in the up and down direction.
