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!
AM broadcast transmits on a low frequency with large antennas. Consequently it takes a large antenna to receive the signals. Typical “antennas” are AC house wiring, phone lines, long satellite or cable TV cables, DSL/CAT5 lines running between rooms, etc. The device wires that connect to these “antennas” need to be choked with as many turns through the ferrite as possible. Some installation examples are shown below on this page.
For AC/ DC power cords and coax cables the F240-77 (2.4″ OD, 1.4″ ID) “Donut” toroid is the most popular. Also available are smaller toroid donuts and Mix 77 beads. Shown below is a graph with 8, 10, and 12 turns through the toroid – obviously more turns has higher choking impedance. Mix 77 toroid products are HERE and Mix 77 small beads (for small wires) are HERE
F240-77 Turns Comparison from .1 – 8.1 Mhz
Shown below is a graph of frequency response verses choking magnitude for a F240-77 in the AM Broadcast band for a 12 turn coil around the toroid. (Same info as above but different frequency range).
F240-77 Choking Impedance in AM Broadcast Band
Typical Installations for Donut/Ring Toroids
 AC Cable on F-240 Toroid – 6 turns |
 Ethernet Cable on F-240 Toroid – 7 turns |
 Audio or Mic cable on F240- 12 turns |
Extra Mix 75 Snap On Beads HERE – VERY effective for AM Broadcast RFI