WE are killing the amateur radio bands, and here is how to fix it (RFI) 

"We traced the source of the RFI...It is coming from within the house! Within the house!" -70's horror film quote

Over the past year I have discovered several RFI offending appliances by clicking through the breaker panel. Some of the most significant RFI producers have been a Genie garage door opener (even while idle), Ryobi power tool battery charger, power supply to an HP All In One Officejet printer, controller on a string of LED party lights and of course a wireless IP router. Ferrite rings and clam shells help reduce RFI some but my best solution is to keep the items unplugged while using the radio. I was actually successful in getting HP and Genie to replace the offending products. The filing of an FCC complaint of radio interference carries some weight with manufacturers.

When I am operating from my apartment, surrounded by 200+ other apartments, the bands are almost always dead. When I drive ten minutes away to a nature preserve, I'm amazed at how the bands have opened!

What's destroying the ham bands, at least the CW portions - is FT8. Bring on the hate comments and dislikes. lol. This past fall we had a power outtage in my area.. and I'm not in a city.. I'm in a semi- rural area. Farms and such. I fired up my rig using a battery and was SHOCKED. Dead silence. S-0 on every band. Even when I kill the power to our house this doesn't happen. The neighbors cause a LOT of RFI. Also, check out Amidon Associates as well for ferrites, etc. Cool vid. Thanks!

I had just awful, splattery nonsense all over most of the HF bands.... I'm talking like +10dB at points. So I shut my entire house down and turned things on one at a time. It turned out to be the LED lightbulb in the fixture over my kitchen sink. Replaced it with a higher quality bulb, and now everything is nice and quiet.

An absolutely excellent video. I started ham radio in 1957 K1IBY in Farmingdale Maine. I am now ZL1CLG in Auckland NZ. In those early days, when I tuned around the bands, when nobody was talking, it was absolutely quiet. You could hear the most teensy-weensy signals.

For my next project. Discovering a hidden second use for my LG refrigerator. An emergency CW transmitter.

Thanks for advice. Simply unplugging my brother's defibrillator when he wasn't looking and the noise was gone. Just kidding.

You need to continue that ground through to the load side cord on that line filter. It's a safety feature meant to ensure someone doesn't die if the metal parts of the dryer become energized because something live on the inside shorts to the chassis...

great video. Just keep the dryer UNpluged until you use it. Saves electricity too. Do the same with the washer, toaster, coffee pot, fans, etc. Wrapping some AC cords can cause heat and fire.

A very good video! There is a good book published by the ARRL on RFI which is very helpful, we deal with all kinds of RFI in telecom circuits in the DSL/VDSL bands. The water sprinkler timers, fish tank heaters, halogen bulbs, TV monitors, switching power supplies, swimming pool pumps, treadmills and the new entrants are solar panels DC-AC converters and electric car charging AC-DC inverters. On the latter there is no IEEE standards on broadband noise limits on Power quality into homes. Most of the noise originates in the home, however it can also originate outside the home and travel via the commercial AC power grid both conducted and RF emitted interference. One way to block is to use noise suppression Belkin ISOBAR or any other which filters out AC broadband noise. The next one is to use Quad shielded cables and in some cases the noise needs to be mitigated right at the source.

DUDE! So happy I found your video. I have the same radio and have been unable to make ANY contacts with it. Well after following your advice I know whats going on. Ordered torrids. Cant wait !!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It seems to me the FCC should clamp down on the manufacturers of these devices for producing so much noise.

Josh, one corollary to your axiom: New stuff gets plugged in all the time and you may not even realize it. A couple of years ago, I ended up with an S9 noise out of nowhere. I used the power off circuit breaker by circuit breaker on approach and discovered it was a cheap eBay backup power brick for an HP computer my wife bought. Ergo, this is not a one battle war! 73 de Robert K3RRR

Here in the UK, we have to put up with an extraordinary level of noise on the HF bands, compared to what it was like over 30 years ago. This high noise level which is usually around S7 to S9 and if you're very unlucky S9+ in urban areas, comes from many sources. The main noise problem is ADLS2 and VDSL broadband internet noise, which radiates from nearby telephone lines. We can also experience radiated mains wiring noise, from cheaply made switch mode power supplies, whereby the noise suppression filter components have not been fitted. The obvious reason these components have not been fitted in the first place, is obviously to keep manufacturing costs down. Then we may have other sources of interference to contend with as well, from smart meters, LED lighting, security camera systems etc. Is it any wonder then, that some Hams have given up the hobby completely, or gone totally digital instead. I myself have spent a lot of time over the years devising a low noise receiving antenna system, so that I can continue to enjoy the hobby. But it's an uphill struggle for sure, as I don't have much noise which is locally radiated in my house, it's unfortunately coming from other houses nearby.

Another awesome video. Love you tracking it down to the TV, and unplug it. Turn around and the look on the kids' faces were like "what the hell dad?"

* throws fridge out * "Next episode, we are gonna install an ice box to prevent RFI" I'm kidding. I did learn a lot from this video as I'm getting ready to set up some HF antennas now that I have upgraded my ticket.

Love your video. I too live in So Cal and have a high noise floor on 40 meters. & years ago when I moved to current house the noise floor was higher than my last house. I too shut off all my circuit breakers and the noise floor is the same. I concluded the noise is coming from the SCE transformer on the power pole in my neighbors yard. (the pole is right on the property line between the two homes.) If my wife is blow drying her hair and I transmit on 40 meters it pops the breaker on that loop where the blow dryer is plugged into but not on any other band does it do that. So I've got other issues on 4 meters. Lastly I will say my noise floor has gone down a bit when I bought all new appliances during our remodel. Chasing RFI is a life long journey for HAM operators who loive in a high noise area anyway. Thanks for your vids. Ken

You might have done this but make sure you connect that ground through your project box. Split it, run one to the filter, and one pass through to your dryer.

I'm going to try what you suggested. I just bought a Tecsun 990 last week for SW and couldn’t get a much… Just this morning the Transformer popped on the pole and was in the dark… I jumped up and got my new radio and was amazed by how much it could pick up without the background RF everything in the house had been creating. It was the best two hours of listening since living here.👍🏼 Enjoy your vid’s greatly.

I like the part at the end when you talk about proper a/c ground. I think that would make an excellent video about propper a/c grounds AND proper RF grounds, differences between them, And how they should be propperly implemented.

Great advice Josh! Thanks for sharing them with us on what to look out for and how to combat them.

I just revisited this video, Good Stuff Maynard. I started messing (yup if you do electronics) early on and had some good fortune to work on some interesting stuff. You won’t really know what you’ll find when start looking, aircraft wiring gnewed by rats, signal lights, automatic doors at retail locations, ect.

One idea I did not see is the use of a common mode choke on the antenna input. Like the Palomar Maxi-Choker. It really works here.

I had an emi/rfi device that took me over a week to nail down. 300 feet away from my house the power pole was transmitting noise into my trucks am radio as I drove under the power lines. The source was an aftermarket laptop power adapter. It spewed noise down the power lines for hundreds of feet !!!! My tiny cheap portable am radio tracked it down !!!

Ha Josh excellent topic !! I just went thru this process last week in my home... in my case biggest offenders were lights the wall mounted units with led but traditional style bulbs ok, but the smaller low voltage embedded cieling lights all had major hash, bathroom lights the worst ! But was very happy to see the cause so now working out how to combat, cheers 73s

I was thinking about getting into ham radio after a 60 year hiatus from electronics. I set up an SDR dongle and began listening to the ham bands. I was appalled at the banality of the conversations. “Hey OM how am I coming through? I’m using a new antenna I built with a coat hanger and a Victor mouse trap. 73s” Maybe it’s time to create a branch of amateur radio defined by an alternative communications system that could survive a massive denial of service attack or EMP. As of right now all ham gear would be fried along with every other computer. Maybe a legitimate ham goal would be to create a retro system using tubes (gasp) and CW. Yes, plate voltages require extreme caution when handling compared to solid state but we were building 900v power supplies back in HS.

I'm building power centers at the HT location, wiring closet, and operating position consisting of a large battery, a Genasun MPPT solar controller, and a single quiet power supply that charges the battery. ALL DC loads are placed on either the 12VDC bus, or on other buses using Linear step-down regulators. For the AC devices (internal power supplies), I check for bad filtering, unbonded green wire to chassis, et al...

Liked this one Josh. I’ve been doing the same in my house. However, my worst offenders are the new LED street lights and I got them just thru the antenna...

Hosh, perfect timing for this video. Thank you!! I'm studying for my General License and planning my HF Radio Rig. I had completely forgotten about RFI generated from my home devices. I've been studying which Transceiver, power supply, feed line, antenna....etc. Reducing RFI is a step I would have completely missed. 73 KI5HII

Thank you for the crash course on RFI! As a HF operator living and operating in the suburbs, I deal with noise on a daily basis. In my neighborhood, 20 meters has a noise floor of an S3 to S5. I recently discovered that solar panels produce lots of RFI. I'm not saying I'm against the use of solar panels, but I am upset about the noise they produce on all HF bands. I will consider putting toroids on similar devices such as TV's, chargers, etc...

Had the same exact problem with my Samsung refrigerator but worse. I was unable to operate on 20m. Spent thousands on my shack and hardly ever used it due to rfi. Now I'm 100% portable

Excellent way you explain this! great job!

Don’t worry all, both sides of filter are connected to ground. Thanks for the concern! For reference. I am using the Palomar Engineers ICOM 7300 rfi kit and an additional kit of mix 31 torpid cores and snap on ferrites for my noisy devices. All are available at Palomar Engineers.

Totally NOT clickbait, great video! Thanks for taking the time to explain this!!!

I just sunk 300$ on toridiols coils from them today for my new rig and antenna. I wish I saw this. I knew about this having helped a few hams find RFI before. That and the time we put snap on coils on the neighbors portable phone power and phone line. I am going to have to do this when I get the new rig up this week. I'll use your coupon then. 73s I am glad I found your channel.

One of the most important videos you have ever produced!!! Palomar makes great product including radio specific kits. Had the opportunity to listen to them at SOARA. Keep up the superior work!

Awsome, could not get anything at my place, except the washing machine lol. We will now be having scheduled power outages haha. 73s VE6RFL

Wow....just got my tech and general license and saw this stuff in my studies, but oh my .....real life has a way of driving it home...thanks so much for this video. Just starting up my first ham shack and ran head first into this this problem and I have been thinking it was other things. at least now it makes sense and I have some tools to go after it and fix it as you have shown.....great stuff.

Great job. Very well presented. Planning to tackle my s9+ noise floor (40m) sometime soon before I build myself a permanent HF antenna at my QTH. 73 de 2E0IEH 👍

Sounds like a great argument to build a dedicated Ham Shack in the back yard!

Very informative!

It’s very important to make sure your appliances are all grounded good. It tends to put a shield around the equipment. Then also very important is to make sure your house is grounded by a lightning rod. All homes have to have one to give you another protection. The power company doesn’t give you a good ground. Then also if you have copper water lines in the house, make sure they are also grounded. Usually in a home if something needs to be grounded, they run a grounding wire to the waterline like maybe upstairs to save running one all of the way to a panel.

Excellent topic nicely covered. Inspired me to go track down the noise around my shack..

IT'S COMING FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE!!1

Awesome video Josh, Wondering where I can get a filter for a neighbor's Marijuana grow?

Thanks, another great video. I was going to ask you to show how you did your ac ground, now I will just ask you to move that video to the top of your to do list :) There are a few of us new hams that got great gear over the holidays trying to figure out how to set up our shacks safely. Thanks again!

Excellent work! Shut down my refrigerator and freezer - noise floor dropped radically.

There are lifts in our block. They generate enormous amount of RFI when moving.

8:00 you could also add more toroids in lieu of loops of wire.

I have power lines overhead plus rf. In the house it's hard to manage but need to get serious and go threw my breakers! Great video and gives me some inspiration, thanks!

Great job! I had the same fridge issue; an off-line 12V switcher running at 3.6 MHz! I hacked in a cleaner transformer based linear supply.

I absolutely love it when we have a power outage here... Clean listening!! 73 de Karl VE3GUN

Powerline data transmission is a band-killer. How they snuck it past the FCC is beyond me... … oh... wait... could it be vast sums of cash?

Amazing video! The amount of noise in a home is unbelievable! I enjoyed your hunting expedition.

Thanks for making this video. I have a constant S9 noise at my house across most bands. I'll start looking at getting rid of the RFI.

I'd be happy if the RFI was in my house, would just be matter of finding device and disconnecting it. So much is out of one's control around the neighborhood.. If you are an an urban environment, you don't even know half your "neighbors" and all the RFI around you.

Excellent video, Josh! A 120VAC dryer? Really?? Huh....I've never seen one! I am fairly certain, however, that you want to tie both sides of that ground to the device ground lug, rather than 'lift' the ground on a device with both a motor and a heater. Unless the manufacturer of the filter specifically directs you to lift that ground (or in the case of a double insulated tool for example), I've never known that to be a good idea. Thanks, and 73 W1NLJ

Great Job! Thanks for the help. I will be sure and get the noise down in my shack since I have seen this video.

The power went out in my neighborhood the other day and I was amazed how much more I was able to pick up

Not smart removing the ground on the dryer.

Not having a ground on your dryer sounds DANGEROUS. I would tie the grounds together. Just wondering: is there any point in telling the FCC about bad devices?

you did a great job and a better thing for all people that have this problem !!! TY

Never forget Modem and Cable TV as well. This is something I've dealt with for a long time. When I was finally able tp go from DSL to cable internet it helped but for some reason upping my speed to 1 GB kinda made a mess of it. I have several portables and an Icom R75 in the bedroom and yes, I hear stuff a lot. Moving the LF L-900 From the roof to its own mast away from the Condo helped a lot as well. I think the big thing is we don't think about it as often as we should. Great Video.

That extra ground wire can go on the same lug.

If I move my uv5r antenna just the right way I can hear my lamp lol

Great video. Very informative. Expect to watch this several times. THANKS!9

Thanks for the heads up. I know about EMC and thus RFI. But this video brought back the importance for my shack again. About the dryer thing... good idea to proper ground the thing. Further, don't put the filter in the center of the lead. When placing filtered and unfiltered lines together, you will short the filter again by capacitive coupling. Thanks a lot for the video! Will help a lot of people! 73, PA8E, Wim

The one thumbs down is from a guy who makes dryers and refrigerators .... .. .... .. .... ..

Removing the ground from a dryer is NOT a good move.

Excellent topic and great video detailing, thanks for sharing. Thinking will be interesting to see what the ground connection bonded together (I think that's the term) effect will be compared to how you left in this video. Like you noted with earth grounding or other methods... that will be an interesting video in itself with a range of topics to review the range of not only FCC Codes, i.e. National Electrical Codes.

There is only so much you can do in your own home, the issue I found is the neighbors equipment that you can not do much with. What needs to be done is strong enforcement of electrical and radio emissions standards to start with! this issue started to become problem in the 2000's with change over from linear power supplies to switch mode units.

I realize I commented on (and therefore watched) this video two years ago. My thought is why do we keep accepting this? Why do we take it lying down? We need to complain to the appliance manufacturer and/or the power company. And, not just once but repeatedly until they fix the problem. If you are not getting satisfaction, write to the FCC, again repeatedly until you get some response and some action. Most folks try once or twice and give up. For those who don't think this works, the FCC fined and forced Home Depot to eat millions of dollars worth of noisy Chinese LED light fixtures. The FCC went after computer manufacturers for selling home computers with noisy supplies. They have gone after power companies and cable companies. The FCC is not fast, but they are the 900 pound gorilla when it comes to RFI. Another option is to get together with some other hams, find an attorney, and file a class action law suit. This is tougher because you need about 25 people with the same problem from the same defendant to make it practical.

Dude. Hook both the line and load grounds to that ground screw. The ground must continue to the dryer.

Very useful information. Will subscribe now. Only have two Wouxun 9s for airband. But do get a lot of noise.

Great video! It also tells us something about the failing FCC (and their overseas equivalents) policies regarding this problem. They tell companies their products should accept interferences and avoid transmitting rf interferences by devices but it is to no avail. Makes no sense if no one keeps to these regulations. Thing is, I have already done this at my home but over here in Holland we live in overcrowded towns. And I know some switching power supplies can spoil things in a terrible way, sometimes these things have a range of several hundred meters or even more. So I gave up, I also gave up the hobby at home. So now I have invested in mobile equipment. Greetings, Willem from Holland.

I had a baofeng charger that made so much noise on HF band

‘Wall warts” are often at fault...

Very good information Josh. Excellent video quality too!

Really great video. Thanks for the info!!!

How about your microwave oven? That’s another intermittent use device that probably spews a ton of RFI when operating.

My led lights in the basement ad 2db on 10 meters.......so I operate in the dark.

Wow! THIS IS AN EXCELLENT VIDEO!!! Whoever thought a fridge would cause so much RFI. I am bookmarking this video.

Thanks for this episode. I've got a problem with a networked security camera system using POE. Birdies at 70khz spacing. When I unplug all the cameras and the network cable the birdies disappear. Reducing in intensity as I go. Chokes don't help. It's at the point where I just shut the system off when I want to play radio. Defeats the ourpose of the camers but at least I can play radio. Love your channel. Cheers from VK4

Next episode.....my neighbor and his baofeng battery charger

It always amazes me how ameaturs cant interfere with others( rightly so) but everything else can interfere with us.

Very useful thanks...so I never thought of adding the toroidals to the actual noise-producing appliances...

Really useful to see, thank you 👍 curious to know have you used the MFJ-915 RF Line Isolator and your thoughts on that would be gratefully received 😁👍

My wife is the rfi. Every time I get on the air she starts. Do they make a ring for her ?🤪

Cheap Chinese electronics and HOA's will be the death of amateur radio.

Great Content as always! Your Dryer issue reminded me of the front load washer (LG Brand) we had. It made a lot of hash on 40m and 15M when it was not turning, or transitioning between CW and CCW. while spinning it was fine. No amount of ferrite wrapping on the power cord helped. I had to take it apart and EMI shield the circuit board and get right on to the motor casing and shield the motor controller. (My wife was eying me speculatively during this process...) Palomar makes great stuff, and I recommend their 7300 EMI kit. Thanks Again for all you do!

After watching this video. I am now convinced, I think it is time to run my Icom 718 on nothing but battery. I live in a mobile home, which is bad enough for various reasons. Excellent video!!!!!

The fridge is listening and reporting to the government

Excellent procedure that is simple and quite effective. But the main problem is that small appliance manufacturers could care less about interference when the masses tune only FM, not knowing that better information is available from long distant AM stations. No such interference was present in the 40's when listeners and the FCC enforced quiet bands. NT3X.

A great intro to the problem of RFI for Radio Hams. Am especially interested in your up and coming video on good AC grounds as I have a problem where RFI is actually present on my mains earth ( circa 18 MHz and 50 MHz). The RFI is thought to be coming from a neighbour's appliances. I can even pick up the RFI off my bath taps (pipework pick up or direct connection of RFI ???)

You can get RFI from a breaker itself. I had to replace the 20A-220V breaker that goes to my dryer circuit. I turned off the breaker and the noise went away, but unplugging the dryer and turning the breaker back on. The noise returned. There must have been some arcing inside the breaker. Once the breaker was replaced, the noise from that circuit went away.

Great video with Great information. Thank you so much. Have you encounter RFI Breakers yet that trip under rf transmissions? Might make a great video.

Another ace bit of info. RU-vid is lucky to have folks like you.

Thanks for the video! - By the way, another thing that may causes trouble on the bands are hams themselves sometimes. Apparently, too much RF power in combination with harmonics causes noise on the bands. That's nothing new, though. People were aware of this since 1924 or so (saw an article of that time once). ;) Anyway, the RFI problem is real for sure. Using magnetic antennas and multi shielded coax cables (not RG58/213) might be helpful somtimes, I guess. Getting rid/fixing of the noise sources might be most successful idea, though.

Excellent video, thanks for sharing.