Can I set my radio to not turn on when I start 'er.

 

Yes. Turn off the power. I don't mean to be a smart ***. I'm assuming that you're referring to the stock HK radio. But I never had that issue. Sorry dude.

 

You have to turn the radio off before you shut the engine down.

 

There must be something that goes on in the radio that does this. My '10 ultra started doing this too, and questions at the dealer yielded nothing, they seemed to know less then I did about it. It also started to come on in random source too, comes on in AM, or FM, or weather, and it used to come on only in iPod if the iPod was plugged into the aux port. I suspect it is actually a radio problem, but so far no one seems to think it is a warranty type issue. I figure one day it will die and I will have to replace it.

 

How is your battery? As my battery weakened my radio would do this. Once I replaced the battery it stayed powered on or off as I last left it.

 

If its under warranty use the garden hose. That will take care of it

 

New battery solved this for me too.

 

Batteries that will no longer build and hold charge and bad grounds can be the source of all sorts of electrical and electronic evil!

The batteries that are marketed to us these days are of very poor quality - just got a HD and hoping HD will be better. It usually took 2 to 3 batteries for my BMW and Venture bikes to get a new one that would not crater after a couple of days.

 

My radio would sometimes change bands (AM, FM, Weather band, etc.) when starting. I tightened up the battery connections and that solved the problem. It seems that it is a low voltage condition that screws with the radio.

 

Several of you that answered the question were referring to older bikes. The guy has a 2014, so none of the answers involving the old HK radio are valid. The answer is NO, you can not control the radio coming on when you start the bike as of yet. This is one of the minor things that irk me about the new radio. I tried several ways of shutting the bike down to see if it effects this issue but none worked. I suspect Harley is working on a software update that will cure this issue but it isn't available yet.