Portable Operation 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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Filters

Filters
Portable operation is fun but also brings challenges to the radio operator concerning receiver “noise” levels, RF interference from adjacent sources including close by transmitting stations, and RFI from portable generators.  A typical scenario and some suggested Palomar product solutions are shown in the picture below:

Generator RFI testimonial:

Bob 

Received your order in a timely fashion. Tried the generator kit on Sunday & it drops the noise from S9 to S5 and 
took out all the electrical noise.  I may want some more toroids from you at some point for other interference problems
I have  here.
Ken VE3KCY

Using an amplifier?  Don’t forget our Linear Amplifier RFI Kits

Want to make up your own RFI kits for a particular operation? Here are links to some of  typical RFI solutions used in portable operations:

AC/DC common mode filters

Feed Line chokes

Coax Noise Filters

If you use a computer for logging in your portable operations, RFI getting into computers will often lock up your computer and/or radio and a computer RFI suppression kits may be helpful

Computer RFI Kits

Make your expedition or portable operation a pleasant and fun outing and remember to take along your RFI kits so you have more time to operate rather then to troubleshoot intermittent or noisy receiver conditions.

Portable Antenna Kits

If you need an effective portable antenna which folds up for transport yet is easy to deploy at your operating site, consider the BULLET series of end fed wire antennas.

BULLET Antennas (click on link or picture for more info)

Bullet Antenna Product 300x292 - Portable Operation RFI Kits