Car Battery Powered Aerial

[JoeC]

I have a front interior screen mounted radio aerial. It was connected up to radio to run off the starter battery but I installed a kit for it to run off the leisure battery along with the blinds etc. However, now the aerial is permanently powered on and starting to drain the leisure battery.
any thoughts of how i can connect the aerial up so that it only comes on when the radio is power on from the LB?

Cheers
Joe

[g8dhe]

You need to pickup a spur from a fuse on the old fuse panel that is ignition switched, this fuse would be fine;

Replace the fuse with one of these spurred fuses;
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/MINI-ADD-A-CI ... 35d3984f35
and connect the spur wire to the power to the aerial.

[JoeC]

but won't that mean that the aerial will only be ON when the ignition is ON defeating the purpose of the LB wiring that I installed?

[g8dhe]

Yes... Unless the radio has a power out facility, otherwise you need either a manual switch or to detect when the radio is drawing power. This presumably is a DAB radio?

[JoeC]

DAB ... only if I touch it gently!!
No, it's an old radio/CD which I installed after I picked the van up from JAL. JAL had replaced the standard roof aerial with an internal antenna which they stick to the inside of the windscreen.

[jimmo62]

If your radio has ISO connectors you can check if there is an antenna power pin and see if that goes on and off with the radio. Connection diagrams are here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connectors_for_car_audio
Connector A pin 5 or Connector C1 pin 6 might do the job

[Simon Jones]

Most stereos have a lead that is specifically to power an electric aerial. This is only live when the unit is switched on. That's what I've used to power the screen-mounted DAB aerial on mine. I've also wired my stereo up so it can run off either battery so for normal use it is controlled by the ignition switch.

EDIT: beat me to it Jimmo

[JoeC]

It does have ISO so will check out both of your comments. Thanks to you both.

[Dodgey]

Also, any stereo that has phono outputs has an amplifier trigger live - just the same as an eletcric aerial live.

It's a low current live than comes on with the stereo to trigger amps to switch on. It's how I power my external Digital TV receiver.