At last the source of the RFI has finally 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.

So, if you are thinking about LED replacements as was I, it might not be the best thing to do or if you do, make sure you can return them or take up some other hobby!

73, Roger

Other, even worse, sources of RFI in my house (before I clobbered them) were:

1) Trane central HVACs with variable speed induction motors. HORRENDOUS RFI! Sleeving the wires with braid, adding ferrite beads, and attaching to a ground rod driven through my basement floor fixed that problem.

2) The 2-wire remote interfaces on Chamberlain/Life Master garage door openers. I replaced the wired interface with wireless and no more RFI (strangely enough!).

3) An SGC SG-230 remote automatic antenna tuner generated massive RFI when powered up (but not even operated), mainly across the HF bands.

I wrote to Trane, Chamberlain, and SGC about my problems with their equipment. They were not interested.

Other neighborhood RFI sources have included:

4) All the mercury vapor street lamps in my neighboorhood. The lamp poles are aluminum and they seem to make great radiators.

5) The electrical systems at certain street corners. Don't know whether this is the lights, the camera systems my home town employs, or what, but all radio reception is wiped out when going through the intersections.

6) COMCAST cable modems. Unfortunately, all that COMCAST techs care about is leakage. The fact that their equipment may emit outside of the normal cable bands doesn't seem to occur to them. A neighbor's cable box emittered terrible HF RFI for about 6 months before COMCAST finally replaced the thing. I have COMCAST internet, but I run fiber from my house to a media converter and cable modem in a water tight box I mounted on a post close to the cable junction box out in my yard. That box is attached to a ground rod and the coax running to COMCAST's junction box is sheathed in copper braid.

7) I am not certain of the exact source but my current RFI grievance appears to be the LNB on a neighbor's satellite dish.

My neighbors have not been cooperative. I would be happy to pay for the secret to eliciting same....

Unfortunately, the FCC has 2 techs to track down RFI in a 5-state area including Colorado. They don't have the time to track down the zillions of malfunctioning or non-compliant electric blankets, fence chargers, neon signs, HVAC systems, garage door openers, light bulbs, power bricks, toys, Christmas lights, etc.

Jim