[RFI] LED Bulbs

[David C. Hallam]

The following is part of a message I received from a ham friend of mine 
who lives in Northern New Jersey.

David
KW4DH

> 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."
>

-- 
"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."
Thomas Jefferson


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