Very cool. I probably read your articles since I used to subscribe to Sport Rider. ?
There have been a few threads about radio equipment in the Cybertruck, but I can't recall if details of you installation have been posted before...?
I'm running an ICOM ID-5100 with the detachable head mounted (suction cup mount) under the Cybertruck's screen. Mic just rests in one of the center console charging bays. Antenna is a Tram Browning 1191 Through-Glass unit (instantly solves the question of how to route coax into the cabin; and works better than I expected).
No, quite the contrary. I find both the Cybertruck and the Model 3 to be very clean, electrically. The drive units put out some EMF products, but my testing showed those to only be noticeable when in very close proximity to those motors - as in literal inches. I picked up nothing from the battery pack itself (not that I expected to).
I'm surprised that you were able to get a suction cup to stick to that plastic. My experience was not great - I tried heating the pad in hot water, but even that wouldn't cause it to stick for more than a few moments... and that was without anything attached to it!
Well, I went out and spent some time with my little TinySA Ultra, poking around the truck. I've confirmed that my little switching supply isn't the problem. Unfortunately, it appears to be the inverter for the interior plugs that is causing the noise. Here's a photo of the waterfall on the SA:
Thanks for running additional tests!Brock, I'm honestly not seeing a meaningful increase in noise from the SA print that you posted. Looks to me like you've got a noise floor of around -108 dBm whether your Cybertruck outlets are active or not. The right-hand half of your print shows a bit more (very weak signal) activity in the waterfall, but you're looking at a different part of the spectrum at that point and those might - probably - were legitimate signals, albeit very weak ones.
You did make me curious, though. So I took my TinySA out to my truck and pulled two quick sweeps inside the cabin... first with the outlets turned off; second with them turned on. (apologies for the crappy images - my TinySA can't capture screenshots like your Ultra can).
I scanned the same 144.000 - 148.000 MHz that you did. I did change Resolution Bandwidth (RBW) from your 30 kHz to 3 kHz... as doing so reduces the amount of noise coming out of the TinySA itself (at the cost of increased sweep speed). Doing that also probably reduced the noise floor I was seeing by 8-10 dB.
Wasn't much there.
Still curious, though, and painfully aware of the limitations of the TinySA, I went back inside and retrieved my Siglent spectrum analyzer. It's powered by 120v and so I pulled an extension cord out of the (electrified) shed my Cybertruck is parked next to. I used a Diamond SRH320A antenna from one of my HT's as input to the Siglent. No attenuation. The following two prints were a minute apart... the first with the Cybertruck outlets turned off; the second with them turned on. Notably, when the Cybertruck outlets were hot, a 12v switching power supply, an IceCo fridge, and a Valentine One radar detector were also all hot inside the cabin. This was very much a quick and dirty test... but also one that would show the Cybertruck in the worst possible light.
Same 144.000 - 148.000 MHz slice of spectrum. The only thing I did different with the Siglent was to reduce RBW even further, to 300 Hz. Again, to minimize as much as possible the noise coming out of the spectrum analyzer itself.
What I can see in the second print, with the outlets hot... is a very, very small increase in noise amplitude. And if I had to bet, I'd bet most or all of that very modest increase is down to the stuff in my cabin that energized when the outlets turned on.
For context, we need to be 14-15 dB above the noise floor to be full-quieting into most repeaters. The maybe couple of dB we're seeing here is, literally, noise.
Which is not at all to dismiss the noise you're experiencing. When you can hear something like that coming out of a radio receiver, it's pretty in-your-face. For sure, something is causing it.
I'm also aware that component or parts supplier changes, sample variation, and a few things like that can make one vehicle exhibit something that another doesn't.
At the end of the day, every active circuit and every energized device is going to generate some amount of RF noise. Including our Cybertrucks.
All I can say with certainty is that in my very small sample size of one - okay, two... I'll include my 2022 Model 3 - RF noise is negligible.
Best of luck in finding what's behind yours.
Nice write-up! "exquisite" is a good single-word descriptor of the Cybertruck.Something… exquisite
Smugglers Bay
my bad as I dont know, what app is that?Meandering like a drunken sailor, the road unwinds in a series of mini adventures. Tracking across Virginia’s rolling landscape, hard up against its western Piedmont, the ancient topography here is exactly what you’d expect in the foothills of the Blue Ridge.
Off to my right, the darkened visage of those mountains beckon. I’ve driven up into that shadowed labyrinth for a lifetime. Carrying a rifle, or a fly rod, or wielding two wheels.
Today I’m in the truck. Winding across a circuitous route that I’ve ridden a million times.
Uncoiling in hard spirals that will hurt you, this road has been one of my favorites for as long as I can remember. Technical, demanding, every foot is either climbing, falling, turning left, or turning right. Crests and apexes come at you like punches from a boxer in a never-ending stream of you-best-get-this-right.
It’s a motorcycle road, plain and simple. Cages, here, suck.
Only… not today. Not anymore.
The Cybertruck doesn’t hide its size. There’s no escaping its weight and length and girth. And so it’s something of a surreal experience when you touch the throttle and feel all that mammoth size simply vanish. There’s a delicacy, an almost preternatural feel to its steering. The one-pedal driving gives an uncanny sense of control. And the suspension bestows an uncommon confidence as it has you railing around corners at the very limit of the tires' adhesion.
As I go hurtling down the short little chute where the famous actor’s ranch driveway enters, the blind left-hander just beyond has my attention. The turn rises, hard, even as it turns, imparting a twisting movement to any vehicle at speed. If you don’t get it right you’ll be into the stone fence fifteen feet off the tarmac.
But hit your line just exactly so and you can catch a couple degrees of nearly hidden camber. Just enough. Enough to give you a couple more mph of corner speed out of those I’m-giving-you-everything-I’ve-got tires.
You touch the steering yoke, your head pulls hard to the center of the cabin so you can see around the big A-pillar, and then you feel the lift. Smooth, spun, pushing you back into the seat like the grace of angels.
You smile and shake your head at the deliciousness of it all, ever amazed at the wonder of this gift. A word floats into your consciousness, one that only comes rarely.
Exquisite.
It’s been a year. 12,401 miles.
On day four, at 359 miles, the rear drive unit failed. It sat at the Service Center for a week while they diagnosed it and waited for parts.
Since then… perfect.
Actually, better than perfect. Because the miracle of the Cybertruck is that beyond its unnatural prowess on a back road… is its utility. It’s a truck, after all.
Like all the ICE trucks that came before it, mine lives outside. No garage. No carport. No nothing. It sits out there in the heat and the cold and the sun and the rain.
I live at the end of a quarter-mile dirt/gravel driveway. It sees a half mile of “off road” on every drive.
The truck stays dirty. Dust is ever present in the vault.
It’s had one flat tire.
It’s powered my home twice.
It saved the bacon of two car drivers, stuck in the snow. The bag I routinely carry in the frunk with all the serious recovery gear – kinetic rope, hitch receivers, hitch pins, soft shackles, tow strap – didn’t actually get used on either of those. All it took was the two recovery boards that live in the bed.
It’s been on 15-odd mini road trips, each of a few hundred miles. Mostly carrying me to rifle matches hither and yon.
Towing isn’t its bailiwick. But pulling a utility trailer somewhere reasonably local is. It’s done that a few times.
It’s carried the million and one things that pickup trucks get called upon to, out in the sticks.
The Tesla spare tire rides in the front of the bed. Except on those occasions when more space is needed, on which occasion it gets wrestled out.
The spare tire weighs a ton.
Probably the most useful accessory on the whole truck is the Tesla Bed Divider, which allows working from the rear for most things. The two Recovery Boards live zip-tied to the divider.
The undervault storage - smugglers bay - is mostly about self reliance. Mobile Charger and 25’ extension cord. Everything needed to deal with a flat – plug kit, compressor, breaker bar, 21mm deep socket, torque wrench, spare valve stems, hand cleaner, a few hand tools.
Plan A is always to plug the tire with it on the truck. Plan B is to plug the tire off the truck. Plan C is swap in the spare.
In the cabin, the IceCo fridge in the back and the ham radio transceiver in the front both need 12v DC. So there’s a 12v DC power supply sitting up under the front passenger seat. Anderson Powerpole connections make everything easy peasy.
Efficiency has been excellent. I occasionally dip below the EPA bogey on a high speed road trip. But mostly it stays well above it.
Lifetime consumption is 370.2 Wh/mi.
Battery pack degradation has yet to enter the picture.
Much has changed in the EV and Tesla world these last twelve months. Politics, off the rails, now seems to inform everything.
Alas.
What hasn’t changed, though, is what the engineers at Tesla wrought. They threw away the rule book and built something brilliant and different.
Something… exquisite.
Where it Lives - Outside the Shed
Spare Tire, Recovery Boards, Foam Mat for Working on the Ground
Smugglers Bay
Grid Power Down - No Problem!
Towing One of the Bikes
12v DC Power Supply & VHF/UHF Radio
Fridge
Battery Capacity after One Year
Rated Range
Efficiency vs Ambient Temperature
but that should be ok, come on....Me too!!!
I still can't understand why my wife complains so much about it...
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Mehhh...men are from Mars and women are from Venus I guess...
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