Electrical Noise

[NN5I]

I just now did some checking. My loudest noise on 20m is about s1. Turned the Magnetek converter on and off, furnace, roof air conditioners, water pump -- all pretty quiet to my surprise. Oh, yes -- water heater -- wait a sec -- yep, it's quiet too. Also the two little fans at the corners of the windshield, which I never use. Looks like (1) I got lucky, or (2) my radio doesn't hear well. But I hear WWV OK, and the little fan in the ceiling vent in the head is s7. Never use that, either.

[radiow6lar]

Looks like you made out ok. As for the fans, the one in the head here does get out some rfi and I have a little portable that runs on 12VDC and it is really rf noisy. But don't use either one much. Its the brushes arcing I believe.

The two converter/chargers I had were bought off of e-bay and I even tried to use one to power a Ten Tec Hercules II 550W solid state amp but again, it ruined the HF on RX, Had plenty of power for the amp but ?? So they may have been rejects but came new in the box. I tried a couple of led replacements for the overhead lights. Lots of light but lots of rfi from the led driver chip and oscillator. I just got some flat panel leds that have no electronics, 48 leds on the board. Nice light and quiet.

[NN5I]

Originally Posted by radiow6lar

... I tried a couple of led replacements for the overhead lights. Lots of light but lots of rfi from the led driver chip and oscillator ...

Now that's interesting. I've been considering getting some LED bulbs to replace incandescents, in order to reduce my power usage when boondocking. It never occurred to me that they might produce RF noise. You may have saved me a bundle.

[radiow6lar]

Carl, glad I mentioned this. The ones I bought that were very noisy had 10 SMD leds on a round flat disc. ON the rear there was a small AMC7150L driver chip with assorted caps, diodes and an inductor. They were pretty pricy at about $14 a pop. I just got a few to try. For the replacements I ended up with some from an e-bay seller that ships from California. It has 48 SMD Leds on a square flat surface and no led driver involved. A sticky tape back allows it to mount inside your housing. It also comes with three bulb adapters, a T-10, Festoon and BA9S. So it was just stick it up and put the T-10 adapter on and plug it in the bulb socket. No Noise! Cost on these are $6.49 and shipping was free. And you can get them in Warm white 3000K to 3500K or harsh white above 5000K. So I am leaving in a week for a two month long trip to Florida and beyond so we shall see how these work out. I'll comment along the way on how they are working.

Larry W6LAR