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Fogdog
05-17-2016, 02:26 PM
Yep, I guess that's what its doing. Ok, so here is the story. We just moved into this house in Jan 16, and I'm finally getting my radio station up and running. I'm in the garage at the basement level. I have my Stryker 955 HPC hooked up to a 12vdc AGM battery for power. I just made an inverted V Dipole Antenna which is almost a flat 1.1.1 SWR. This antenna is attached to the garage until I can get a longer coax cable , and run it out to the trees, and get it up in the air. That's it. No electrical connection between my radio, or any of the other components. I do have a battery tender charger connected to the battery at all times however. Hmmmm.

Today I was able to make a couple of contacts in Illinois, and Louisiana. So anyway the YL comes down to the garage and tells me the power is out in the master bedroom (main floor), and also in the 2nd story bedroom. Also the lights in the China cabinet come on, and also the lights in the entertainment center come on. These lights are those touch control lights that come on when you just touch a metal button on the china cabinet and entertainment center. So anyway I reset the 120 A/C breakers, and turn the cabinet lights off. Then I go about DX'ing and the breakers trip, and the lights come on. WTF!

My question is , can a radio trip household breakers? I've never heard of this before. Now when I used to run this same radio in my pickup with a TNT 600 HD Amp, it would at times turn the lights on in the same entertainment center we have now, and my voice would bleed over and into the YL's Satellite radio. At that time the truck was about 50 ft from the house. IDK whats going on. Maybe its the battery charger that is causing the problem.

The good news is , that my Homebrew antenna is working.

222FL
05-17-2016, 04:23 PM
Battery charger and also stray RF. Try some snap on ferrite chokes or an rg isolator or Low Pass Filter at the radio. The Low Pass Filter in combo with sole ferrite chokes or a 1:1 balun or RF isolator should resolve your issue. Might be time to get a power supply. The megawatt power supplies are worth every penny. I use the s-400-12 on an Icom 746, voltage set to 13.85vdc. And it's adjustable from 9-15vdc. They make a smaller unit. 30a vs the 36a one I have. It's only $50 or so. Plus shipping. The one I have is only $60 and he also carries a 50a one that can be ran in parallel with 4 or more of them connected together for increased amperage. No bridge needed. Just make sure voltages are same. Anyway. JMHO. But if possible, get a power supply. Check your local CL as well. You'll need a 15-20a one for the radio you are using. The more amps the better. But I would try a LPF, (low pass filter) after the radio and see if that helps. Sounds like you have some stray RF. Hope you get it resolved. Try unhooking the batt charger and turn the power down on the radio as to not kill the batt to fast and see what happens as well. Just some more food for thought. Again, hope you get it resolved.

Fogdog
05-17-2016, 05:57 PM
^^^^ good advice, thanks. I just ordered the Megawatt 36 amp power supply you told me about. I have ferrite chokes ony radio already. I tried my low pass filter, but it raised my swr for some reason. Going to get some more coax tomorrow, and gety antenna away from the house. I took the battery charger off, but the RF still activates the lights in the cabinets. I'll try the LPF again tomorrow and see of that helps. I think this radio only puts out around 60 watts. If I puty TNT 600 HD in liney Ram Diesel might start remotely. :-)

Fogdog
05-17-2016, 07:09 PM
Jeez, I need to spellcheck.

222FL
05-18-2016, 10:54 AM
If your VSWR went up with the LPF in line, try a different jumper length from radio to LPF. It took me using a odd ball combo of jumper lengths to get mine where it was seeing at good match at the radio. But I also had a switch on the same coax from radio. Try a 6ft, 9ft, and then if you have them, like 4ft, 5ft and so on. You might see a slight increase in VSWR adding it in line. But it shouldn't be anything to worry about. If it's jumping like it think it is, then trying different coax jumper lengths and also grounding the chassis of the LPF. Also is all your equipment t grounded to your antenna? As in is everything grounded together minus your AC house ground.
If not, read up on how a commercial tower for radio or cell phone use gets grounded and you'll have a good idea of what I am speaking of. Here at my QTH, I have 10+ ground rods, all 5/8" x 8ft of 1/2" x 10ft, (3), or these. And I use #2awg solid for all the ground wire minus the stuff going to radio and equipment. It's a bit more flexible. At any rate, the enitre back half of my house has a half circle around it. All ground rods are tied together as well as radio and other radio room equipment. Then comes the surge arrestors. Have 2 of these being used currently and have 3-4 more on hand. One Huber Suhner and the rest are Polyphazer ones that I converted for 27mhz use. At any rate, what I am getting at is that you need to setup a good grounding system for your entire radio base station. As well as some form of EMP/lightning protection. I also have a #2awg solid wire that runs up my mast pipe to the base of my antenna and is grounded there as well as several places along the mast pipe to the ground. I have spent a lot of time and effort on this, but I have never had an issue with lightning, thank The Lord! At any rate it does help a lot. It seems as the more grounds I add my noise levels go down slightly. And I also feel a lot safer if I do get take a strike or near one. I've plenty of metal to dissipate the energy!! I plan on getting the entire house done some day and will have a complete halo ground around my house.
Also adding a small buss bar is a great idea if you can. This will help with tying all the grounds together at one point creating a single point ground system which is exactly what you are trying to accomplish.
But first off if you don't have all your equipment from the antenna mast your radio, amps, LPF, surge arrestors, and so on grounded you need to look into getting this done ASAP. Summer is almost here and we will all be getting summer t-storms I am sure!!
Let me know if I can help any more. Again, hope you get it all resolved. I'm sure the power supply won't hurt anything. Also, you'll have to adjust the voltage to about 13.8vdc from the factory setting of 12.6vdc. This is simple.
The orange pot on the front of the power supply left side, just use a decent volt meter and slowly, I mean slowly turn the power up to desired voltage. It will adjust from 9-15vdc. But 13.8vdc is what most autos charge at so that is a good voltage for radios as well. Again, hope all this helps and if there is anything else I can help with I'll try my best. I'm not an expert by any means. Just go by my own experiences. Good day.

Fogdog
05-18-2016, 05:26 PM
Thanks for all the good advise. I'm listening. I tried a bunch of different size jumpers, and really the swr is ok. No higher than 1.3, and even on 10 meters it's 1.8.1. Not bad at all. Using LMR 400 coax. Going to order 100 ft of it tonight, and see if I can't get the wire up in the trees. Looking forward to getting my power supply 5 days from now. I worked on my 2 meter antenna today.
How do you ground an inverted v dipole? Also do I run a ground wire to the ground rod from my radio also?

222FL
05-18-2016, 07:30 PM
There is no need to ground a dipole. Use a 1:1 balun at the feedpoint to get the impedance to 50ohms and you will be fine. If you don't have or can't get a 1:1 balun then 12 snap on ferrite chokes for LMR400 will work as well. I had 2 dipoles up at 35-40 feet. Just took them down as my Sirio vector 4000 has just as good if not better tx and RX both locally and while dxing.
And as far as your radio and all other equipment you have in your radio room, all should be grounded. And yes it will all go to the same ground rod as the antenna mast. It would be a good idea to at lest place 3 or more ground rods total into the ground. The more ground rods the better. Keep them about 3-4ft apart and make sure all are connected together. All grounds should be tied together minus your house AC power ground. This will keep you from having any ground loops. Single point ground system. Look it up. It's well worth investing some time into. Believe me when I say it will help all kinds of issues. Including RF issues. But for what you are trying to accomplish a good 1:1 balun or a set of the proper mix of ferrite snap on chokes at the dipole feedpoint will help a bunch. A 1:1 balun or what some call an RF isolator. Dr. Dipole on eBay sells a pretty good matching/isolating balun, (1:1).
There is more to tuning antennas than obtaining a low VSWR. Impedance and reactance are also important as well. Or what some will say R and X. R should be 50ohms and X should be zero. This is while using an antenna analyzer and not just an swr (VSWR) meter. Little things will make a big difference. Read up on ERP, or effective radiated power. Your coax, connectors, coax VF, type of coax, and many other factors go into figuring this. And it may not seem like a big deal, but if you truly do some research you'll find there is a difference!
Good deal on the LMR400. It's all I will use here. Next I plan on changing out my lmr400 with LDF4-50A. Heliax coax. Very low loss. I have enough to install it, just needed the connectors that were buried amongst all my other things. Now it's all ready to install once I get the nerve to mess with it. My antenna is tuned about perfect so I don't want to mess with it LOL! At any rate. Hope some of all my babbling has helped and if need anymore help and if I can be of any more help, just let me know. Have a great day!!

Fogdog
05-18-2016, 07:40 PM
Even with the low pass filter, when I key up the lights still come on. Man there's a lot to learn. I'm digging it though. I will look into grounding, especially since I live in the mountains with lots of lighting activity.

Tallman
05-21-2016, 07:20 PM
Even with the low pass filter, when I key up the lights still come on. Man there's a lot to learn. I'm digging it though. I will look into grounding, especially since I live in the mountains with lots of lighting activity.
My wife has one of those touch lamps and no matter what I do filter wise or ferrite beads it doesn't make any difference.
What ever frequency I transmit on it will turn the light on and then step up in brightness till it turns off and then back on.
If you figure out how to fix it let me know. The breaker thing might be because of a GFCI socket or breaker. I would definitely check for those.

Fogdog
05-21-2016, 08:25 PM
Hey Tallman good hearing from you. It's been awhile. I'm just down the road from you now in east Tennessee.
Hahaha, I told my wife I was just going to unplug those lights. We don't use them anyway.

222FL
05-22-2016, 02:56 AM
Now maybe I can come visit both of you guys! Been to Tallman's house before and have had dinner with him and his wife. Very nice people and 100% friend to me, Tallman is Good people!! Hope all is well there and tell the wife I said hello for me. I need a vacation anyways, so maybe here soon I'll be getting my ticket and will be able to talk to you guys all the way from here through repeaters or if you have an Icom radio we can do D-star maybe?? I know Tallman has a 7100, and my local pal just got one as well. Might make me break down and get one, or a 7000. Either way, sweet radios. Sorry for the babbling! Have a good morning to both of you gents.
And Fogdog, just buy the wife a new lamp or 2 to replace the ones that are acting up. Good way to get something you want as well!! When Wife Happy, Life is Happy, for us anyways!
73 and God Bless.
Sean.

Fogdog
05-22-2016, 06:53 AM
That sounds good. I missed the opportunity to visit the Tallman when we traveled through Kentucky. He helped me out over the phone with my last mobile install. Very knowledgeable. We tried to make contact on 10 meters several times but it just didn't work out. Maybe a Cbjunkies reunion.

222FL
05-22-2016, 09:06 AM
He is very knowledgeable. He is the one that steered me toward the Icom 746 and I have been a happy camper ever since. Love my Icom's now! It's just been so dead on 11m. So I like many am going to get my ticket here very soon. And this time I mean it Tallman!! I have a couple of handheld radios. Cheap ones I suppose but they work. The guy I bought my Icom from set up a repeater and got his business band license renewed and got his old freq back as well. I am under him on that and can speak on the freq with him.
2 radios are the UV5R and the UV82. He has an Icom 7100, 5100, 746 pro, a bunch of old radios as well and a kenwood ts480sat. He has more than that and he has the new Icom fr6200h or something close to that. Total repeater setup. Antenna is up at about 95ft. He bought a nice Hoffman waterproof outdoor enclosure for it and has solar power and the whole nine yards setup in it. Very nice it is. So I have to get my ticket now man!! Will get the tech and go for general while I am there. Just to see what I am dealing with. Heck I might get lucky, ya never know! At any rate, just thought I would share that. I will be getting a decent dual band radio here myself. The Icom only has 6m and 2m as well as HF. But anyways. You gents be good and hope you are having a good day. It's actually very nice here at the moment. Here is a pic. Have a great day from Port Orange, FL, just down the road from Daytona Bch. http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160522/9f4c1dc4b351e2685c4494b9402e0603.jpghttp://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160522/082649ab927e0b68ffa3944f1f47153c.jpg

Not a cloud in sight! Nice breeze and it's actually not too hot at the moment!!!

Tallman
05-22-2016, 10:37 AM
Hey Tallman good hearing from you. It's been awhile. I'm just down the road from you now in east Tennessee.
Hahaha, I told my wife I was just going to unplug those lights. We don't use them anyway.

Same here, I just unscrew the light bulbs.

Tallman
05-22-2016, 10:45 AM
Hey Tallman good hearing from you. It's been awhile. I'm just down the road from you now in east Tennessee.
Hahaha, I told my wife I was just going to unplug those lights. We don't use them anyway.

Where about in East Tennessee? Knoxville or further in to the mountains?

Tallman
05-22-2016, 10:52 AM
That sounds good. I missed the opportunity to visit the Tallman when we traveled through Kentucky. He helped me out over the phone with my last mobile install. Very knowledgeable. We tried to make contact on 10 meters several times but it just didn't work out. Maybe a Cbjunkies reunion.

I'm game but I don't think Silverado996 will show up, He's too married to his job and playing on his new ranch. Maybe we could all go to his place and have ourselves a "Hamvention/field day" on those 36 acres in the wilderness.

Fogdog
05-22-2016, 11:31 AM
Yeah, that sounds good. I don't think 996 will mind. I just talked to him via email a week ago. It was good to hear from him. I'm in Roan Mountain, Tn. About 4 miles from Western NC, in the Blue Ridge Mountains. It's a new cabin/chalet on 10 acres of heavily wooded property. It's pretty awesome. The creek is right across the road, and I fly fish less than a mile from my house in the Doe River. Turkey and deer hunting on my property. Lots of trees to deal with, when it comes to any kind of antenna. I'm building a inverted v dipole for 10 arnd 11 meters. 2meter works well up here. The repeater is about 15 Miles from here.

Tallman
05-22-2016, 11:35 AM
222dbfl here is a link for you to study with: http://www.hamradiolicenseexam.com/ (http://www.hamradiolicenseexam.com/study.jsp?action=ef82gfageqer) No pass they refund your money. I ACED the tech and only missed one on the general. It does not just teach the test it does teach the course and prepares you for the test.

BOOTY MONSTER
05-22-2016, 12:09 PM
overdriving or over modulating a radio or amp will produce splattered frequencies or harmonics of the channel you're transmitting on and can affect nearby electronics . check your radio's power output and modulation levels to be sure they're not the source of the problem . sometimes (mostly in vehicles) relocating the coax route away from a susceptible device or it's (power) wiring can also help .

Fogdog
05-22-2016, 12:11 PM
Awesome antenna there 222

Fogdog
05-22-2016, 12:15 PM
Yep, your probably right. The antenna is almost touching the house. It was just a temporary spot, just to see if this homebrew dipole would even work. I'm waiting for my coax to get here, then I'll mount it properly. My radio should be ok, although I do have it on full power. No amp, just the radio. Thanks for the help.

222FL
05-23-2016, 06:15 AM
The issue you are having with the lamps, if they are like Tallman's ones, get some different ones. I had 2 dipoles up, one directly above the house at 35-40ft and one in the backyard at the opposite end of the yard from where the Sirio vector I took a pic is. It was up at the same height or near the same height as the other. One pointed N/S and the other E/W. Both in the horz. position. I used snap on ferrites and was able to get the impedance down on both antennas. Ran both through the LPF using a diawa switch.
Never had any RFI issues with anything in my house or the neighbors either. Using the Icom 746 with up to 100w being used. Not much. But I didn't even use that much power 99.9% of the time. More like 20w.
After installing the Sirio vector 4K i got rid of both dipoles as the the vector does better all around. It heard everything the dipoles heard. Just can't cut noise out as easy due to it being an omnidirectional antenna. But it works well for me on 11m SSB. I have no issues making contacts these days with 100w or less.
At any rate, get your coax as straight down the antenna to the ground as possible. At least the first 9ft of it anyway. I found keeping them about just above head level and bringing them into radio room worked well. And I also used LMR240 coax and #6awg wire to make mine LOL! They weren't too heavy but man they were heavy duty! Anyways. Might be a good time to look into a good vertical antenna as the DX is dead. You will get some occasionally but it's very sporadic these days! Depending on how bad the winds are where your qth is, I would recommend the Sirio vector 4K or even the 827.
Any other good antenna is going to cost triple the amount!!
Only other antennas are the Maco v5/8 or V5000. Anyways just some food for thought and hope you get it all working like you want. Only other antennas I would say to look at is a 3 element beam. Get it up as high as you can. They will tell well locally if you get them up in the air. At any rate, have a good one and maybe I'll catch you on air. Been monitoring 38lsb. Nothing! Just static. Have a good day man.

Tallman
05-23-2016, 08:15 AM
You might want to check out the QSO King antennas on eBay. That's what I use here and have no trouble making contacts on any band I choose. From six meters down to 80 meters and could go down to 160 meters if I put more wire in the air. Gets out very well with low power. I have a linear that can pump out over 800 watts dead key and have never used it. No need because if I can hear them they can hear me.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/QSO-KING-160-6-meters-1-5-KW-end-fed-ham-antenna-/141244173399?hash=item20e2cf0c57:m:mHzc0ubUjfDMgORDjOjPCmg

Fogdog
05-23-2016, 12:44 PM
Well thanks fellas for the recommendations. It might take a while, but I'll get er done.

Fogdog
05-28-2016, 08:20 PM
Today I got all the parts I was waiting for, and set my inverted V dipole up in the air about 25 feet, lmr 400 coax ,and a mfj 1.1 current balun, and still turning lights on inside the house when I transmit. Swr is a bit high, but I have room to shorten it. I'm just not sure what's going on. Maybe as was said earlier, you radio is sending out splatter. I got a couple of good reports tonight, and I had conditions on most channels. Night and day compared to yesterday.

Fogdog
05-29-2016, 02:57 PM
Fixed it. No more lights in the house come on when I key up, and no breakers trip. Even on full power. This dipole hears pretty good, but not sure on transmit. It was pretty rough out there in DX land today.

222FL
06-05-2016, 01:05 PM
What was the issue after all Fogdog? Remove the light or add add some ferrite chokes or something?? Just curious. Haven't been here in a while as tapaltalk and the Formum weren't behaving well together I guess. All seems to be working now for me. Glad to hear you got it resolved. And with the way things are, you might consider a vertical antenna at some point. DX is almost dead and soon all there will be is locals talking. That or get your ticket!! Just some food for thought. You can also make a Vert dipole. Do some reading and see how many sorts or dipole configs there are. A lot more out there then one can imagine it seems LOL!! Anyways. Have a good one. Getting reading for some rain and wind here the next few days. I added more paracord to my mast pipe. Doubled up on all 4 corners. Gotta keep my Sirio vector 4K up. Anyways, again, glad you fixed your issue. Have a good one!

Fogdog
06-09-2016, 05:14 PM
I guess it was the Balun, and getting the antenna away from my house.

222FL
06-09-2016, 06:07 PM
Good deal, glad it's fixed.