galaxyguy wrote:
On 20 Oct, 21:44, Bill Baka wrote:
D. Peter Maus wrote:
On 10/20/09 12:35 , Bill Baka wrote:
Second, I have to mention that those el-cheapo CFL's that Wal-mart is
selling have one hell of an RFI output. I thought my radio had gone down
when I thought to turn off all the CFL's in my house and it got
listen-able. I have an oscilloscope monitoring the audio and the noise
spikes are at 60 Hz and very consistent.
I think that if someone wanted to get into their radio it would be a
small matter to put a line synced blank pulse when needed.
A late thought, here....have you put a bit of capacitance across the
lamp?
I've thought of a lot of things but the capacitor needs someplace for me
to put it. I was hoping the F.C.C. would have been bright enough to
regulate a noise maximum but no, we get HDTV during a Depression.

I had a torchiere in the studio that was creating some enormous

spikes on the line, and was getting back into the audio. Eventually, I
pulled the SCR fader out.
SCR's are terrible for noise. I had one on a filament lamp for the
bedroom ceiling and as I dialed the bright up and down I could hear the
change in the radio.

But a quick short term solution was to put a capacitor across the line. Put an orange drop in a 3 to 2 line adaptor,
and plugged it into the power strip. Quieted things right down. Even
elimated spikes that were getting into my AM receiver.
Cheap solution. Good results.
Sounds good for a few fixes but I don't want to do it for every bulb in
the house. Someone should make a noise reduction socket piece that the
CFL would plug into. I'm thinking 2 inductors and 2 capacitors.

Bill Baka

Thanks for the note about this interesting moment for SW radio
reception. I will make a special note to use SW this week.
I used to listen frequently in the days before satellite but as a
radio anorak, it will be enjoyable tuning in currently.
Living outside the USA, as most of the planet does, I cannot comment
on equipment in Walmart,

*JUNK*

but I bought a neat and cheap and green small
SW set on the net last year. I use recycled batteries in it, charged
from a solar charger and it also comes with a light and more
importantly a winding crank so that you can have plenty of listening
time simply by turning the handle a few times. The brand is 'Eton' and
I guess it is made in China, but my carbon footprint in using it must
be near to zero. Radio pleasure with a care for the environment too;
can't be bad!

Chinese or not it sounds like a good deal. I have and old maritime RDF
radio (1974) and it will run off of a 5" diameter solar cell I have from
a solar powered sidewalk light. It puts out about 6 volts at 100 ma and
runs the radio just fine. For night time use it sucks up 4 D cells.
I just had the Hammarlund fired up and the CB crowd is alive and well.
The RME-DB20 gives me about 20 dB of gain at the CB band. It's out there
but some hunting is needed.

Bill Baka