By Peg Quann | Bucks County Courier Times
When he decided to become a ham radio operator, Charles Dillenbeck, of Bristol Township, went all out for his new hobby.
He purchased the Cadillac of radios — an $8,000 model that allows him to chat for a few hours every night with amateur radio enthusiasts around the world. Five antennae surround his house.
Then one night this spring, the static he normally heard on different frequencies became much louder, so loud he could barely hear the the people with whom he was chatting.
“I can get rid of the noise (by turning down the volume), but then I wouldn’t hear anything at all,” he explained.
A few days later, as Dillenbeck — a Navy veteran and retired commercial heating and refrigeration engineer — stared out a window in his home trying to figure out the problem, the street light came on. Immediately, the static started again. Was it the light, he wondered.
It turns out Bristol Township installed a new LED fixture in the light in front of his house as part of its plan to replace incandescent street lights with cost-saving LED bulbs.
“The old lights didn’t interfere at all,” Dillenbeck said. He talked with another ham radio enthusiast who lives in the township who also had the same problem. He used a “noise finder” piece of equipment to test other street lights. The same static occurred, he said.
The electronics in the new lights appeared to be causing the static.
A recent report supports his theory. LED lights and other electronic equipment are creating more radio frequency interference for the more than 725,000 amateur — or ham — radio operators in the United States, according to the report issued in June by the American Radio Relay League, a national association for amateur radio users.
And the problem could affect emergency communication centers, because LED lighting is gaining popularity since the federal Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 required more energy efficient lighting equipment. National Public Safety Telecommunications Council statistics show that LED lights, which can use 75 percent less energy and last 35 to 50 percent longer than incandescent bulbs, are expected to account for 52 percent of lighting used commercially by 2021…. READ FULL ARTICLE
Station Master DeLuxe™ is big brother of regular Station Master™ and has all its capabilities but provides more ergonomic user interface with... Read more
HBR4HF V3.0, is another 4-banders series from Hambuilder. It is a medium size desktop transceiver with big enough power. We try to keep it low cost, s... Read more
“Special thanks to the folks from RF-kit who attended Hamvention 2022 and allowed me to record this video about this AWESOME Ham Radio Amp. Take... Read more
The IC-R8600 is a super wideband communication receiver that covers the radio spectrum from 10 kHz to 3 GHz. It also has the capability to decode sele... Read more
It’s small SSB/AM/FM receiver with wide band coverage – LW/MW/SW/FM. Touchscreen and simple menu makes this radio easy to use. It has 2000... Read more
ACOM 1500HF Easy to operate The TRI is a powerful tuning aid that, together with the automatically controlled input attenuator, helps the operator to... Read more
AnyTone AT-5555N GENERAL SPECIFICATIONS Frequency Coverage: 28.000 to 29.699 Mhz Antenna Impedance: 50 ohm, unbalanced Frequency Control: Digital Phas... Read more
DESCRIPTION Rugged Portable DC Power Management System with built-in High-Efficiency Battery Charger! > High contrast OLED display > Power man... Read more
LDG – AT-1000ProII – Antenna Tuner Building on the success of the AT-1000Pro, LDG Electronics has refined and expanded its flagship 1KW t... Read more
Elecraft KX2 Hello to all, We are please to announce a new radio to complement the KX3 and the KX-Line. Here are the details. What: Elecraft announc... Read more
More
Station Master DeLuxe – microHam
Hambuilder V3.0 HBR4HF 4 Band HF Transceiver
RF-Kit RF2K-S Amp – Ham Radio Amplifier, Legal Limit, Hamvention 2022
IC-R8600 – Wideband Communications SDR Receiver
Mini SSB receiver ATS-25 (LW/MW/SW/FM)
ACOM 1500HF + 6m LINEAR AMPLIFIER
AnyTone AT-5555N 10 Meter Radio – 30 Watts
PowerPlus – Rugged Portable DC Power Management System
LDG – AT-1000ProII – Antenna Tuner
Elecraft KX2 announced at the Dayton Hamvention 2016