The 40 watt (equivalent) LED bulb I purchased at Home Depot causes a reception problem on VHF HDTV channel 13 (over air).

The VHF antenna is mounted in the attic and the LED bulb is in a floor lamp in the room below. The VHF reception isn't great on channel 13. It measures 55, in the orange area on the built-in meter of a set located in another room. But when the LED bulb is turned on the meter drops to 30, in the red zone and the picture pixelates badly.

I moved the bulb to a room further away from the antenna and the interference was less severe. The meter dropped from 55 to 50 when the LED bulb was on so it still had some effect. Couldn't see any affect on other VHF or UHF channels when the bulb was in either location.

Did a Google search and found others have seen similar problems. The answer may be a cable subscription when LED's become more popular.

It is a conspiracy by the cable company

quote Originally posted by spark1: The answer may be a cable subscription when LED's become more popular.

The answer is better-designed LED lamps. RFI filtering is usually inexpensive, and it certainly isn't rocket science. Your lamp may even violate existing FCC Class B RFI emissions standards. I'd check a little further before just accepting the situation.


Edit: change Class 2 to Class B.

[This message has been edited by Marvin McInnis (edited 03-09-2012).]

quote Originally posted by Marvin McInnis: The answer is better-designed LED lamps. RFI filtering is usually inexpensive, and it certainly isn't rocket science. Your lamp may even violate existing FCC Class 2 RFI emissions standards. I'd check a little further before just accepting the situation.

Class 2 or B?

quote Originally posted by TK: Class 2 or B?

You are correct. It's Class B.

Wow. It has been 25 years since the last time I had to go through FCC compliance testing for a product.

[This message has been edited by Marvin McInnis (edited 03-09-2012).]

Who has access to equipment needed to test this? The FCC leaves it up to the manufacturer to do the tests and that's working well.

There are labs all over the place that does that type of testing but it tends to be expensive and very time consuming. I know because I have had to take equipment through those test it's about as much fun as watching grass grow.

quote Originally posted by spark1: Who has access to equipment needed to test this? The FCC leaves it up to the manufacturer to do the tests and that's working well.

I just found that my electric candle lighter thing will totally freak out the cable box on certain channels..

quote Originally posted by spark1: The 40 watt (equivalent) LED bulb I purchased at Home Depot.

Is it a Phillips? with like 4 yellow sides to it?

Just so the rest of us know not to buy it, if it is!

The bulb is the EcoSmart from Home Depot.

quote The EcoSmart A19 8.6-Watt (40W) LED Light Bulb (E)* can replace a standard 40-watt bulb. The LED bulb puts out 429 lumens with 8.6 watts of power and can last up to 46 years for extended use. The bulb is designed for indoor use and features an A-line shape and medium base. (E)* means this bulb meets Federal minimum efficiency standards.

The bulb may very well be operating within specs. Some level of emissions are allowed and the LED lamp was only ten feet away from the antenna. The TV signal received is in the marginal zone and more likely to be affected by interference. When the lamp was moved 20' from the antenna there was no noticeable interference on the screen but the RSI did go down 5 points on the scale. Not sure what that means in dB.

I found out while servicing 2-way radios that nearly every piece of digital equipment transmits hash at VHF. The worst offenders were digital printers of all types and the small UPS systems used to power computers. Hand held VHF radios are often deaf around digital equipment, even copy machines. One repeater was disabled (desensed) by a security camera near the antenna because a video technician failed to re-tighten a cover plate after making repairs. But that was analog equipment being interfered with by digital then.

edit: I think it's the switching power supplies that cause the problem at VHF.

[This message has been edited by spark1 (edited 03-10-2012).]

Progress---Haruumph! I Never had this kind of problem with kerosene lamps.....

... but could you hang them upside down? I just don't understand you neo-Luddites!

[This message has been edited by Marvin McInnis (edited 03-10-2012).]

Or just use incandescent bulbs.

quote New Jersey inventor’s Newcandescent light skirts federal bulb ban Staring down the barrel of a federal ban on light bulbs as we know them, a local genius has taken a page from his family’s old friend, Thomas Edison. “You, I and just about everybody you know are somewhat addicted to incandescent light,” said Larry Birnbaum, founder and owner of Epic Light Bulb, in South Hackensack, NJ, a third-generation wholesale and retail electrical supply manufacturer, and the brains behind the Newcandescent bulb. “We’re used to it. We grew up with its soft, warm glow that’s a very soothing, very calming color of light.” His new bulb, which gives off the same warm glow, is already approved by the Department of Energy and will offer consumers an alternative when the government shuts production of regular bulbs starting Jan. 1. Under the Bush-era ban, companies here will no longer be allowed to make the old bulbs or import them. The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 requires all general-purpose bulbs to be 30 percent more energy-efficient than regular incandescent bulbs. In creating his Newcandescent, Birnbaum, 63, employed an electrical talent that has run in his family for generations. His grandpa, master electrician Samuel Birnbaum, became friendly with Edison in 1914, when the inventor turned up at Birnbaum’s lower-Manhattan electrical-supply store to present him with a sales award from General Electric. The award, a working replica of the world’s first light bulb, was hand-crafted by Edison. It still works, and Birnbaum says it is even more rare than the originals Edison made in 1879. The pair would talk frequently for the next 17 years, until Edison’s death. “They loved to bounce things off of each other,” Birnbaum said.

quote Originally posted by Marvin McInnis: You are correct. It's Class B. Wow. It has been 25 years since the last time I had to go through FCC compliance testing for a product.

The only reason I asked is that it's been about that long for me too and I didn't know if they have changed something. I did design and compliance testing for FCC and VDE (among other things.) Interesting work at the time.

quote Originally posted by spark1: ...I think it's the switching power supplies that cause the problem at VHF.

Indeed. Switching power supplies seem to spray all sorts of nastiness.

Didn't consider that LEDs had them, however. But I suppose they would have to.
Seems like they could do something more simple.

So is there any alternative led bulb to work with? These 40 watt bulbs from home depot fill my need but with my wireless router on 5ghz and radios seem to get interference.

Only new thing I can say on these bulbs is that the 40watts I bought last year has nicer lettering and the batch at my home depot are slightly blurry lettering (I would love if they had a date stamp or something) and I think the older were plastic and newer may have glass being I occasionally see a broke bulb on the shelf.

Thanks

I think most RFI/EMI enters equipment on the power leads rather that through the antenna.

If the bulb is located very near the router or it’s power lead, it may pick up lower frequency hash. Most of the 5.8 GHz routers also operate at 2.4 GHz I doubt that the bulbs radiate much RF at either frequency but your router might be seeing other junk on 2.4 GHz.

Any interference being picked up by an FM radio is also most likely to enter on the power leads unless the transmitted source is very close and or high powered. AM radios can and do pick up many types of electrical noise from the antenna. A portable AM radio tuned to an unused frequency makes a good “sniffer” to detect RF noise sources.

Noise entering on power leads can usually be eliminated by looping the wires through snap-on ferrites made for the purpose.

[This message has been edited by spark1 (edited 07-10-2012).]

my at&t gsm phone use to cause interferance in my speakers. i would here a pop pop pop and then buzz and i knew id be getting a call.

quote Originally posted by Niterrorz: my at&t gsm phone use to cause interferance in my speakers. i would here a pop pop pop and then buzz and i knew id be getting a call.

Nextel and LINC phones are bad about running interference, if they're close to some audio amplifiers.

quote Originally posted by spark1: Noise entering on power leads can usually be eliminated by looping the wires through snap-on ferrites made for the purpose.

So there is something to put on the wires connected to the fixture to reduce interference and what does it look like. I don't think I can mess with my line would just like to know what to look for.

My routers not directly near the bulb but it has to pass through rooms with led bulbs that are only sometimes on at the same time even though some may be a problem with a router. At one point I saw my wireless go from 60% to 40% reception to test my wireless through a program called vistumbler.

Hopefully if its the bulbs causing any greater interference than cfl bulbs they'll be a newer that doesn't.

quote Originally posted by texasfiero: Or just use incandescent bulbs. [QUOTE]New Jersey inventor’s Newcandescent light skirts federal bulb ban Staring down the barrel of a federal ban on light bulbs as we know them, a local genius has taken a page from his family’s old friend, Thomas Edison. “You, I and just about everybody you know are somewhat addicted to incandescent light,” said Larry Birnbaum, founder and owner of Epic Light Bulb, in South Hackensack, NJ, a third-generation wholesale and retail electrical supply manufacturer, and the brains behind the Newcandescent bulb. “We’re used to it. We grew up with its soft, warm glow that’s a very soothing, very calming color of light.” His new bulb, which gives off the same warm glow, is already approved by the Department of Energy and will offer consumers an alternative when the government shuts production of regular bulbs starting Jan. 1. Under the Bush-era ban, companies here will no longer be allowed to make the old bulbs or import them. The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 requires all general-purpose bulbs to be 30 percent more energy-efficient than regular incandescent bulbs. In creating his Newcandescent, Birnbaum, 63, employed an electrical talent that has run in his family for generations. His grandpa, master electrician Samuel Birnbaum, became friendly with Edison in 1914, when the inventor turned up at Birnbaum’s lower-Manhattan electrical-supply store to present him with a sales award from General Electric. The award, a working replica of the world’s first light bulb, was hand-crafted by Edison. It still works, and Birnbaum says it is even more rare than the originals Edison made in 1879. The pair would talk frequently for the next 17 years, until Edison’s death. “They loved to bounce things off of each other,” Birnbaum said.

[/QUOTE]

Thats me. I bought a whole case/box of incandecent bulbs because thats what ill use. Ive got another box of flood light bulbs for outside. I doubt if I need to buy another bulb before I die. I leave them to my kids.