Radio model plcdbt65mrw.. I replaced this radio in my boat with the existing.. did wire for wire.. Excessive static coming thru speakers.. what can I check..? thanks mike

12v power is good. Ground is good. Check fuse. If all is good stereo is bad. Check with direct battery 12v and direct battery ground.

Yes you can replace that unit however the harness that plugs into the old alpine in all probability will not work with another radio so you will have to connect the new radio's wiring harness to the boat's harness.

Not the Radio. \Static is a result of a short. Could be a speaker wire, insulation or bared surface. Connection not good, or even the radio antenna out of phase.

The volume control on your radio is called a potentiometer, which may be going bad. It works better when its warm because materials expand as they warm up and make tighter contact with each other.

It is also a possible a bad wiring connection exists. Poor contact will cause static, poor audio quality and intermittent output.

Your radio will have plug type connector(s) Your speakers will most likely each have two wires with single female spade connectors of different widths (keeps the polarity correct) the wire with the stripe (of whatever color) will be connected to the negative (-) speaker terminal.

So you need to check all the connections, one is making poor contact.
If both speakers (assuming you have two) sound good or bad... then start with the plug connectors for the radio and any independent black ground wire coming out of the radio.

If one speakers sounds okay check the connections on the other one. You check the connections by carefully pulling the speaker wire off of the speaker and then carefully pushing it back on making sure it feels tight and secure.

PS: If you pull the fuse for the radio, the radio will have no power and will not work. The radio coming on proves the fuse is good.

PSS: Your owners manual should provide lots of information on your sound system components.

That means that if too much power is going to the speaker or extraneous signals are being picked up by the wiring, it can come through the speakers as static. Stopping static requires finding and eliminating that extra electricity from transmitting through your speakers.
If you're still hearing distortion, turn down the volume on your amplifier until the distortion goes away. If the volume is too low to be easily heard, the problem may be that your amplifier produces too much power for your speakers to handle or that your amp and speakers have different impedance ratings.

Hi Jamie, Here's an old trick which you may find useful. Take a run down flashlight cell and confirm the wiring to the speakers by holding the earthing line of the speaker cable to the negative and flash the positive side with the feed to the speaker one at a time. With each swipe you will hear a thump from each speaker as you connect and disconnect. In that way you can confirm the cables are the ones you are connecting. Color coding is not always the same. Use a voltage test meter to confirm the constant power and ignition power and don't forget to earth the set once all other connections have been made, Withour an earth it won't work, but you know that anyway. Regards John

Disconnect all the speaker leads and then hook one speaker (a new, known to work speaker) up directly to the radio using a short (6"-12") piece of speaker wire. Does that speaker work then?

sounds like a short in your wiring to your speakers the best thing to do to check this is run a speaker wire directly to the speaker from the stereo check it that way and see if it works.If that don't work it's the wires on the stereo connection.The speaker wires on most aftermarket stereos are mostly colored 2 of each green,purple,white & grey.

Hello LJones0455. From your detailed attempts there are few options. Position the transducers one foward one aft. Connect the negitives of the battiers to the boat still route both positive & negitive wiring to all devices. Check the continunity of your transducers include flexing while ohming. Let me know of the results.

Your head unit may not have a common ground for the speakers. If you have two wires for each speaker coming from the head unit, rewire the speakers for a floating ground, that means two wires per speaker, or use a floating ground adaptor. These radios now a days are NOT like the radios in the hay days of care audio. If you already did not cause any damage to your unit, you certainly will if you continue to use it the way it is hooked up now. Good Luck