Starcom PTT only works with bike powered radio?

Hi Guys

Am I going mad, or has anyone else come accross a problem like this? It doesn't make any sense to me...

Setup: Starcom 1, hardwired to bike. ipod, phone, GPS and PMR radio connected.

This has all been working well for the last 18 months, but I have recently decided to fit an external antenna kit for my A80 radio and at the same time, ran the cables for the phone, mp3 and radio into the top box. At the same time I decided to run a power lead from the accessory socket to power the radio and to be able to charge the phone and ipod if required.

Tested the setup earlier in the week and discovered that I was getting a lot of background noise through the radio, which turned out to be ignition related. No problem thought I, I can still power the radio from it's own battery and all will be well.

The problem I now have (and I have verified this with two different radios, an Intaride A80 and an Alan 456) is that a radio being powered by it's own battery does not seem to get put into transmit mode when I depress the handlebar mounted PTT button. If I connect the bike power to the radio, then it works ok.

I should point out at this point that I have resolved the ignition interference problem by running the power straight from the battery rather than from the accessory socket, however I still have the issue that the PTT will not operate the radio when the radio is battery powered.

All other functions (ipod, phone. GPS etc) appear to be working normally.

I have also tried an external headset with PTT on both radios, when they are battery powered and they both transmit fine, so it sounds like there is something weird with the Starcom1? But I can't for the life of me think what

Any pearls of wisdom would be gratefully received

Cheers

Pete

Give them a ring..

I bought a starcomm but havent got it fitted yet. However the guys were really nice and helpfull, I am sure if you give them a ring they may be able to offer some suggestions.

Phoned them...

Cheers Rocks, I tried that yesterday and they were just as baffled!

I'm going to re-check and see if I can get the vox feature of the Starcom to activate the radio and then go from there....

I expect I'm just doing something stupid It's been a great product up to now and everything else seems to work fine.

It sounds like there is a problem with the PTT cable? (or - the statements you make regarding the other symptoms - only leaves the PTT)

Can't think what that problem could be, however

All I can suggest now is to re-do all your tests, and take notes at each stage.

Al

I had an issue with my PTT cable when the wires inside the switching unit broke off (well one did anyway). It was easy to fix but I had to pull the switch apart and re-solder the unit together. Could be worth running a continuity test on the switch to see if you may have a similar issue

Possible culprit..

It does rather sound like the culprit might be ptt switch. The continuity test is well worth a try..

Triton said:

I had an issue with my PTT cable when the wires inside the switching unit broke off (well one did anyway). It was easy to fix but I had to pull the switch apart and re-solder the unit together. Could be worth running a continuity test on the switch to see if you may have a similar issue

Click to expand...

How'd you manage that? I had a problem with a PTT Cable, opened up the switch and found that it was all sealed in epoxy.

Still not got to the bottom of the problem - unable to devote the time at present.

Al

Continuity

If you examin the plug that fits into the radio or star comm unit, you should see it is a jack or a two pin plug.

Use a multimeter on continuity mode. Place one probe on each pin or if a jack, on end of jack, and one of tha side of the jack. Then operate the switch, you should hear the multimeter prove and dissprove continuity as you operate the switch.

If you operate the switch and dont get continuity or get constant, then its likly the switch is faulty. Ie constantly stuck in a single state.

Hope that helps..

Ive got a starcom 1 adv and ever since I have installed it I have had problems with bike to bike. I have 2 problems, one being that once the ptt and been pressed the other bike does not get my transmission! Even tho my radio (G7) has registerd with a tx on screen. This will happen with 1 in 4 of tranmissions! I run a test from my bike to car to take one starcom out of the loop and still does the same, even tried differant set of radio's but still the same. The other problem is that the quality is rubbish!. My phone and mp3 and rider to pillion is fine. Starcom still unable to give me a anwser why thinking of ripping it out and buying autocom at a huge loss