Wednesday, December 4, 2013

LED Light noise


I have been having problems hearing weak stations on VHF.  From my earlier posts, you can see I have been trying different antenna locations and setups but am still having problems.  Someone asked me if I had a lot of local noise.  I did not think so, but I figured I would look tonight.

First I tried to find a faint station to tune in to on the VHF radio.  I found a NOAA station that was pretty weak and noisy and started to eliminate sources.   The antenna was close to some lights on the outside of the house and I turned them off and on without making any difference.  Then I tried turning off and on the front porch light.  It was too far away I thought, but the switch was there so why not.  Turned it off and the station came in strong and clear.  turned it on and it died out again.

I found it (or at least one it).

Funny thing is that this lightbulb is 50 feet from the antenna.  20 feet from the radio.  DId not think that the interference would go that far.    I was able to listen in to the Wewahitchka repeater, 81 miles away (not sure of the height).  Much better than than it had been.

OK for the bulb.  It was an EcoSmart bulb from Home Depot.  I went heavily into LED lights a year or so ago replacing many of the most used lights with Phillips brand lights.  I purchased several other brands when trying to figure out which ones to use before I settled on Phillips.

The Home Depot EcoSmart bulb that is causing me problems was one of those test bulbs that had a bad color in the house so I put it outside where it would not matter too much.  I guess is is time to re-evaluate.

So to shorten this up some:
http://www.homedepot.com/p/Philips-60W-Equivalent-Bright-White-3000K-A19-LED-Light-Bulb-420240/203248902#.Up_dWaWSPDM  = GOOD  - works fine with no perceived noise.

http://www.homedepot.com/p/EcoSmart-40W-Equivalent-Daylight-5000K-A19-LED-Light-Bulb-4-Pack-ECS-A19-CW-V1-120/204627114#.Up_d_aWSPDM   =BAD - Noisy on 2m radio

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