Sidebar Sidebar
  • You can now help support WorldwideDX when you shop on Amazon at no additional cost to you! Simply follow this Shop on Amazon link first and a portion of any purchase is sent to WorldwideDX to help with site costs.
  • Click here to find out how to win free radios from Retevis!

Ridiculous Amounts of Interference From Neighbors LED Lights.

Raccoon

Raccoon

Well-Known Member
Oct 27, 2005
240
122
53
56
www.youtube.com
Hi everyone, I know that I can't be the only person that's had to deal with this issue. But I haven't been able to find a way to fix the problem without picking up and moving to a new house.

Everyday I get between 8 - 9 pounds of static noise on my radio. But it stops every night between 11 - 12 . Then it drops down to about 4 pounds of static. At first it was about 7 pounds of noise, but it's recently gotten worse . I can't even hardly hear most of the locals through the noise because it's so bad. I've lived at this location for 21 years, and it didn't use to be that bad until about 2 years ago when some new people bought a house just a few houses up the street from me. When they bought the place , they had the inside gutted down to the beams, and redid all of the electrical inside and outside. Now it's all LED lighting, along with whatever else has been done to the place.

Does anyone here have any ideas as to what I can do to get rid of the interference that their electrical setup is causing in my radios ? Because this isn't just effecting my CB, I'm Ham operator too, and it's tearing up the 10 meter band on me too.

Any help would be appreciated ... Thanks
 
  • Like
Reactions: Enterprise312ok

I have LED bulbs outside that run all night every night to light up the shop and around the house. I've got quite a few inside too. I've heard they can create a lot of noise but it hasn't been an issue for me. Maybe they've got a solar system running?
 
  • Like
Reactions: Raccoon
I use an MFJ-1026 phase cancelling noise eliminator. My noise issue only occurs occasionally, but when it does I get almost 9 S units from the power lines along the street arcing. The 1026 completely eliminates the noise. With careful adjustment I can take it down from S9 to less than S1 !!

The 1026 is notoriously fiddly to adjust, and requires a second antenna to pick up the noise (the supplied whip is useless), but it really works well. In a case like yours, with S 8 or 9 of noise, it is probably the only thing that is going to help.

There are other devices that operate on the same principle including one from Timewave that I don't remember the model number of. The MFJ is the cheaper of the two.............
Good Luck with it ! It took me a couple of years to figure out how to deal with my noise issue here and implement a solution that worked.
 

Attachments

  • MFJ-1026-1.jpg
    MFJ-1026-1.jpg
    25.6 KB · Views: 11
  • Like
Reactions: whiteastro, Shadetree Mechanic and Raccoon
My out building with all my radio stuff had a metal halide dawn to dusk light for years above the garage door. Recently it took a dump and I got the bright idea to upgrade to an led light, so I installed this light.


My antenna is mounted 36 feet from the light, I now have a noise level of S7-8 at night. I end up having to just turn the dang thing off when i'm out there. With it turned off my noise level drops to less then 1.

What's odd is several years ago I installed three of the below style lights inside the building and I have no problems at all.

 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Enterprise312ok and Raccoon
Raccoon said:
Does anyone here have any ideas as to what I can do to get rid of the interference that their electrical setup is causing in my radios ? Because this isn't just effecting my CB, I'm Ham operator too, and it's tearing up the 10 meter band on me too.

Any help would be appreciated ... Thanks
Click to expand...
1. Talk to your neighbours and persuade and help them to replace noisy equipment. (worked for me)
2. Cal FCC and they persuade them to replace noisy equipment. Maybe with some fine too since it doesn't meet RFI/EMI standards. (worked for me)
3. Move to quiet area.
4. Find another hobby.
Mike
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Enterprise312ok, Eldorado828, Raccoon and 1 other person
I will tell you how i solved this problem. Last year i noticed a S9 level of noise and any of my radios and i picked up my 40 channel RS walkie talkie and started walking around my house until i found the noise was the worst at the north end of the house. I went all thru that part of the house unplugged everything and the noise was still there? I went downstairs and found the noise a bit louder and walked thru the garage and it got louder still? So i walked out to the front of the house on the north side and it got louder the closer i went to the house next door.
I knocked and talked to them about the noise on my radios and asked if i could walk around there house, So as it looked like i was sweeping there house for bugs as we walked into there garage it was so loud! I turned off this 4 foot old fluorescent fixture and SILENCE. So i asked if i could buy and replace the fixture and they were fine with that and i went home and ordered a LED fixture from Amazon and now have had a low noise floor for a year. The $20.00 was worth every penny.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Enterprise312ok, USXDriver, doffo and 6 others
Noise killers are last resort, you need to tackle the source of the noise, never had problems asking people here if i could check their stuff for noise, add that noisy appliances can be on their last bit and can cause a fire if they break really.
Stay friendly explain what you do and hobby, they will understand.

My whole house has LED lighting good quality brand bulbs/ TL lights no noise here.
Even my solar panels don't cause noise here i took care of that by picking the right inverter etc.


As Ham i run from 160 meter to 23 cm so i don't need noise here on the edge of the city.

Good luck killing the source...
 
  • Like
Reactions: YardDog, Tech5 and Raccoon
Someone should invent a tool called the ReInterferer. A mixer with a variable LO and a decent output amp. Something worthy of a good FCC foxhunt. Figure out what the owners of the offending RFI are into and mix the dominant parts of their RFI with a LO that puts their noise on something they care about, like their wifi frequency. Once they realize that the usage of their cheap LEDs are what is interfering with their internet tv, they will change those cheap lights.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Raccoon
Raccoon said:
Hi everyone, I know that I can't be the only person that's had to deal with this issue. But I haven't been able to find a way to fix the problem without picking up and moving to a new house.

Everyday I get between 8 - 9 pounds of static noise on my radio. But it stops every night between 11 - 12 . Then it drops down to about 4 pounds of static. At first it was about 7 pounds of noise, but it's recently gotten worse . I can't even hardly hear most of the locals through the noise because it's so bad. I've lived at this location for 21 years, and it didn't use to be that bad until about 2 years ago when some new people bought a house just a few houses up the street from me. When they bought the place , they had the inside gutted down to the beams, and redid all of the electrical inside and outside. Now it's all LED lighting, along with whatever else has been done to the place.

Does anyone here have any ideas as to what I can do to get rid of the interference that their electrical setup is causing in my radios ? Because this isn't just effecting my CB, I'm Ham operator too, and it's tearing up the 10 meter band on me too.

Any help would be appreciated ... Thanks
Click to expand...
Contact the power company. The power supplies driving the LEDs might be injecting noise into the AC lines, feeding back to the power company's transformer. Let them eliminate that possibility, before spending a lot of money on notch filters.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Raccoon, Woody-202 and YardDog
gcook said:
Contact the power company. The power supplies driving the LEDs might be injecting noise into the AC lines, feeding back to the power company's transformer. Let them eliminate that possibility, before spending a lot of money on notch filters.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the idea gcook, I'll see if they'll look into it
 

dxChat
Help Users
  • No one is chatting at the moment.


      Top Bottom
      Back