"R J Carpenter" wrote in message
...

"Colin" wrote in message ...

Thanks for the thoughts, Eric - I did as you suggest, there was no
difference. As noted, if I switch to grid power the interference is
gone.
However the solar array is still sending a charge to the controller at
this
point, so if it was simply RF noise from something in the 'solar chain'
the
noise should persist even when plugged into the grid.

Not necessarily. The current flowing from solar cell to controller is
likely to be nearly zero when not feeding the radio. You won't be
interrupting much current in that case, and would generate little if any
noise.

I see your point. I will try to relate the noise to the state of charge of
the battery. I would think that if the state of charge is low then the array
will be firing all kinds of current at the battery through the controller
even if the radio is not trying to draw it down.


I'm suspecting
something about the link between the inverter and the radio power
supply.

Have you done any common-mode filtering of the leads from the inverter and
the radio? I have an inverter - claimed to be very radio-quiet - that
makes
a mess of the FM band. I never bothered to try filtering since I seldom
use
the setup. It was powering a laptop computer, but once the battery
charged,
I could run for 2 or 3 hours without the inverter.

I will investigate this as well, thanks.