I have about six of these, two in the garage, and four in the basement next to the shack. They emit no detectable RF noise.
Oh, and they are the color-changing variety, but i haven't done the color change on them. w8lv On Sat, Nov 26, 2022 at 6:40 PM David Christ <radio...@mchsi.com> wrote: > I have been buying Feit bulbs and fixtures from Costco for some time now > and have never found any interference. I like their 4 foot shop lights. I > have not tested the color changing bulbs. > > David K0LUM > > > On Nov 26, 2022, at 4:05 PM, Al Lorona <alor...@sbcglobal.net> wrote: > > > > I hope this helps anybody facing the same issue. > > > > The fluorescent lights in my basement make horrible RFI noise, > especially on 40 m but really affecting all bands. They raise the noise > floor by about 16 dB on 40. I discovered this during Field Day *last* year > when I set up in the back yard. > > > > They use these electronic ballasts that put out perfect square waves -- > that's the source of the noise. The entire bulb and wiring act as a > radiator, and there's about 8 feet of wiring in each fixture. I did some > research on the web and found a guy with the same lights who had > disassembled every one of his fixtures to install filter capacitors, and I > considered following his procedure but decided it was waaay too much work > to undertake, so I've lived with the problem for a year-and-a-half. > > > > Anyway, at Menard's the other day I noticed these Feit LED replacements > for the 4-foot fluorescent tubes. These have existed for years now, but > these bulbs were different. They said "ballast bypass" on the box, and upon > closer reading I learned that to use these as replacements you have to > re-wire your fixtures by taking the ballast out of the circuit. (They're > also called "direct wire" bulbs.) The hot and neutral go directly to the > bulbs without anything else in between, just like incandescents used to be. > Well, this intrigued me because I wondered if, with the ballast out of the > loop, it would quiet things down. > > > > So I bought a few of them-- they're not too costly-- and re-wired one of > my 4 fixtures and with the lights on I noticed that the noise floor had > actually lowered perceptibly (and on the panadapter). I immediately went > back to buy the 14 more bulbs I needed and now I can't even tell that the > lights are on... there's no RF noise! So these LEDs are the answer to the > evil electronic ballasts that I don't know how they got past the FCC. When > purchasing LED bulbs one always risks incurring more noise from the LED > circuitry itself, but I've always had pretty good experience with Feit and > this was no exception. I can't speak for other brands. > > > > R, > > > > Al W6LX/4 > > > > ______________________________________________________________ > > Elecraft mailing list > > Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft > > Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm > > Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net > > > > This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net > > Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html > > Message delivered to radio...@mchsi.com > > ______________________________________________________________ > Elecraft mailing list > Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft > Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm > Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net > > This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net > Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html > Message delivered to w8lv...@gmail.com > -- --w8lvn-- ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com
