12:1 Baluns/Ununs

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!

73,
Jim K4AXF
Icom IC-725
Grottoes, Shenandoah Valley, Virginia
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12:1 Baluns are useful between 600-650 ohm balanced loads the impedance at the  end of the feed line is 600 ohms (1/2 wavelength feed line), or high impedance feeds for rhombic,  T2FD and traveling wave antennas.

12:1 Ununs are useful between coax and long wires with a load impedance near 600 ohms like a beverage antenna.  Shortwave listener antennas also can benefit with the 12:1 unun and it may provide a better match than 9:1 ununs – this means quieter noise levels and stronger signals so you can hear distance stations easier.