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Old March 7th 09, 09:16 PM posted to rec.radio.shortwave
Telamon Telamon is offline
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First recorded activity by RadioBanter: Jul 2006
Posts: 4,494
Default Radio Interference

In article ,
Nobody wrote:

McFerg wrote:
These new energy efficient household bulbs really cause a lot interference
on my medium wave and the lower short wave bands. Is there anything I can
do
to eliminate it, short of switching back to the old filament type


I'd switch brands. I have, in over 20 years of using small
fluorescents, found very few that made electrical noise. What brand
lamps are you using? You're not trying to use them with dimmers, are you?



Agreed... I've had mini-fluors in a standard lamp and a table lamp,
both within a metre either side of my Eton E1, for several years with
only one instance of a "noisy" tube. That's now in a lamp in another
room where it's seldom turned on.


Those are not the same thing as the CFL's being discussed. The older
lamps have low frequency ballasts where the only radio noise they
generate is at startup. The noise stops as soon as the bulb plasma is
conducting.

The current generation of high efficiency bulbs use a high frequency
oscillator to excite the plasma in the bulb and this is a constant
source of interference depending on brand and location. This is an
insidious problem because it is location dependent.

--
Telamon
Ventura, California