[RFI] Solar Panel RFI Case In Kings Park, N.Y. : Update #3

[Dave Cole (NK7Z)]

Between Solar, and Grow Lights, Amateur Radio is becoming useless in 
towns.  I visited a friend that lives about 3 miles out of town, his 
background noise level is S3, or S4 on 40 at night.  Mine is 20 over 18 
hours a day, but was S5 or S6 prior to December 7th, last year.  I have 
had about a month of RFI free operating time this year between two 
horticultural lighting operations, one was cooperative, the other is 
not, the FCC should now be involved with the latter.

I can't imagine what is going to happen to the CA Amateurs over the next 
few years if this is not put under control.

73s and thanks,
Dave
NK7Z
https://www.nk7z.net

On 06/28/2018 01:43 AM, Tony wrote:
> All:
> 
> Some of you may recall that I've been dealing with RFI generated by a 
> neighbors solar panel installation since the day it was installed in 
> August of 2016. I promptly notified Solar Edge, the manufacturer, about 
> the noise and they acknowledged (eventually) that their components were 
> the cause of the RFI.
> 
> Solar Edge: https://www.solaredge.com/us/home
> 
> Update:
> 
> Last week, on June 21st, Solar Edge sent a contractor (Solar City) to 
> install RFI suppression to eliminate the RFI. The engineers from Solar 
> Edge told me that they guaranteed it would work and that they've 
> installed this type of RFI suppression many times before.
> 
> Unfortunately, it had little to no effect. They used small clamp-on 
> ferrite cores at the optimizers (noise generators) with one turn of 
> cable around each core. The reason they gave for not using a large 
> ferrite with multiple turns was that multiple turns could damage the 
> cables -- go figure.
> 
> They apologized for not solving the problem and are now flying their 
> engineers in from the west coast to New York to inspect the work done by 
> the installer. Once again, they assured me that problem will be solved.
> 
> In my case, my neighbors installation is 150 feet from my antennas yet 
> the RFI is strong at that distance. It's heard on 30 through 10 meters 
> so HF is essentially unusable during the day while the system is active.
> 
> My advise to my fellow hams is this: take a good look around your 
> neighborhood and notice the number of solar panel systems popping up 
> everywhere. Imagine trying to figure out which system among them is 
> causing RFI and the task of knocking on doors to find out who 
> manufactured the system or who the responsible party is.
> 
> Solar panel systems are not going away so the potential for RFI issues 
> are likely to become widespread. In fact, California plans on making 
> solar panels mandatory on new homes beginning in 2020.
> 
> I think most would agree that it's time for the ARRL and other advocates 
> to make a serious effort to let the FCC know how serious a problem this 
> is. Signed petitions by the 160,000 members of the ARRL sent to local 
> congressmen might be a good place to start.
> 
> Or, we can sit on our asses and say goodbye to HF.
> 
> Tony -K2MO
> 
> 
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