Yesterday I was called by a tech at one of the local marinas about a troubling new problem. All of the new boats are being equipped with the latest high efficiency LED lighting. Everything from overhead lighting to under the water line lighting is using them. Turn any of them on and all VHF reception is completely knocked out and you can't even squelch the receivers on dozens of expensive yachts. It even takes out most of the FM stereo band.
The RFI is particularly stubborn to remove too. Often requiring L/C filtering with both a choke and capacitor as close to the LED as possible. The source of the interference is not the LED lamps. It's the cheap Chinese strobe circuit that flashes the individual LEDs at a rate fast enough to make them all look on to the eye to increase efficiency.
It gets worse. It only took a little effort to find many more sources of this same interference and I didn't have to go far. The LED traffic lights are doing the same thing. Not every light or color. Just the lamps that got replaced with cheap junk. Then a DPW truck went by with his blinker on. Each time the LED blinker went off, it made the same RFI. Good thing his 2-Way radio has a PL squelch.
Now we have lighting becoming the fastest growing source of RFI. Everyone from pot growers to the department of public works has become an unsuspecting RFI generator. Hard to believe there are specific laws against this and a huge government organization to watch over and guard us from it.
The RFI is particularly stubborn to remove too. Often requiring L/C filtering with both a choke and capacitor as close to the LED as possible. The source of the interference is not the LED lamps. It's the cheap Chinese strobe circuit that flashes the individual LEDs at a rate fast enough to make them all look on to the eye to increase efficiency.
It gets worse. It only took a little effort to find many more sources of this same interference and I didn't have to go far. The LED traffic lights are doing the same thing. Not every light or color. Just the lamps that got replaced with cheap junk. Then a DPW truck went by with his blinker on. Each time the LED blinker went off, it made the same RFI. Good thing his 2-Way radio has a PL squelch.
Now we have lighting becoming the fastest growing source of RFI. Everyone from pot growers to the department of public works has become an unsuspecting RFI generator. Hard to believe there are specific laws against this and a huge government organization to watch over and guard us from it.