Exercise Equipment RFI Kits
Does the operation of a treadmill or your exercise equipment wipe out your radio receiver reception? We have heard cases where the treadmill from a neighbor’s house wiped out the ham radio receiver reception from 2-30 Mhz! The treadmill source was finally isolated to a variable speed motor power supply that was injecting RFI into the AC wiring of the house and the AC wiring was acting as a transmitting antenna broadcasting the signal to the entire neighborhood. The case was difficult to track down since the broadband RFI interference only occurred at 7-8 pm each nite when the neighbor used the treadmill. As with all RFI cases the sequence is similar: Find the Source, Choke the Path, Protect the Victim.
Once the source was identified, a simple solution was to choke off the transmitting antenna with a AC line choke shown below which eliminated the interference problem to the ham receiver:
Testimonials
F400-31 AC Power Cord Choke completely cured the RFI problem I had with my wife’s treadmill. Now I can hear the weak signals!
50 ohm coax to 75 ohm balanced output baluns are useful for low (< 1 wavelength) dipoles exhibiting 75 ohm characteristic impedance or for matching to balanced ladder line whose endpoint impedance is near 75 ohms.
50 ohm coax to 75 ohm CATV coax connections are easily done with a 1.5:1 unun with SO-239 connectors on input and output. Likewise 50 ohm coax to unbalanced verticals or loads near 75 ohms can be matched with a 1.5:1 unun.