I've been tearing my hair out for 2 months because of unbelievable RFI on 2
meters, rendering terrestrial and EME impossible. The following text pretty
much sums up what I finally found today. This may be a big problem because
the FCC considers that once identified, the liability for correction is on
the generator of the RFI and if not stopped immediately then they can be
fined. Who would have thought the LED's could radiate so far? If you want to
see some pictures from the spectrum analyzer I'll send them down. You
wouldn't believe it!
"At last the source of the RFI has been positively identified!
To recap, the wideband RFI centered on 145 MHz which began in mid-December
was isolated to a specific house at 22 Cedars Road in Caldwell, NJ about 700
feet from my home. The RF level was about 20db over S-9 or nearly 1
millivolt, yes, "millivolt' at my receiver. It wiped out the entire 2 meter
band as well as the lower portion of the public safety and aircraft
spectrum.
While the RFI sounded like AC line buzz, looking at it on a spectrum
analyzer showed a 20 MHz wide signal that swept and pulsated. PSEG was
instrumental in first identifying that the RFI was wideband and close to the
residence in question as I had determined from walking the area. I then used
a 4 element 2 meter yagi to positively identify the direction of the source.
I considered that the problem might be channel 18 leakage from Comcast cable
but that did not prove to be the case.
I was able to talk to the home owner who was very cooperative in working
with me to find the source. I first thought that it was associated with TV
usage but several tests did not yield the precise problem though the
Comacast cable box and Samsung large screen TV were able to be heard inside
the house on my Yaesu HT in AM mode but nowhere near the level I was seeing
at times at my home. It seemed that when the homeowner was not home the RFI
would disappear and in that case TV's were off.
Today, another test was made where the homeowner turned off all TV's and the
RFI was still present. She then started tripping breakers and the RFI
completely disappeared! It was now positive that the RFI was from something
I the home. Further testing revealed the source as 9 LED lamps in the
kitchen that had been installed in mid-December, at the time I first noticed
the beginning of the problem.
The lamps were obtained at Home Depot and are the Eco-Smart brand, MR-16
halogen replacements and are rated at 50w = 8 watts consumption. Obviously
this is going to become a really big problem, not only for PSEG as people
bite the bullet and purchase these things but it will also become a FCC
issue as well as they clearly exceed any radiated emission spec's for
consumer devices.
For now, since we know the source of the problem, I am working out with the
homeowner a plan to perhaps go back to the halogen lamps. This problem needs
to be escalated to Home Depot, the FCC, and anybody else that should be
notified before the entire 2 meter spectrum is lost to licensed users in
this country and others."