FM interference from LED bulbs

[Jim Kiriakis]

Tivoli Model 1 tuner in our kitchen for wife listening to public radio while prepping food.

Dipole antenna on the room.

General Electric range hood has two high intensity bulbs- when illuminated it does bad things to the reception.

Anyone have any insight?

thanks and happy holidays,

Jim

 

[ra7c7er]

It's not the LEDs it's the device that powers the LEDs that is the problem. It's a known issue. Here is just one article on it but if you google LED interference with signals you will find tons of articles and some potential fixes.

https://www.electronicshub.org/radi...act is that,LED, which causes the disturbance.

 

[arts]

I tried LEDs above my bench and the interference was so bad I gave up on them; can't troubleshoot in the dark

 

[jlovda]

It's worse for AM.

 

[gadget73]

yeah, noisy switch mode supply in the driver. Electronic florescent ballasts do the same thing. I've tried caps across the power line right at the thing, same with ferrite beads. Never got much result out of it. When I have to do radio work on the bench, especially on AM, I have to shut the 4' light fixture over the bench off and just deal with the light from my magnifier.

 

[Bob@FM]

General Electric range hood has two high intensity bulbs- when illuminated it does bad things to the reception.

You can try replacing the 2 range hood bulbs. My GE range hood (~4 years old) came with incandescent bulbs. I switched to quality LED bulbs and it they ran cooler. But didn't notice FM interference either way - no FM radio is close, though.
If the problem is LED bulbs, and they are now LED, you could try incandescent ones, or try another LED brand. No doubt what is in there stock is likely the cheapest thing possible.
Moving the antenna would likely also help, it possible. The radiation interference strength goes down rapidly with more distance from the source.
I noticed a big difference in quality of LED bulbs, and only use Philips "warm glow", which are widely available.

 

[Bill Ashton]

Our under-cabinet LED lights do a number on FM radio reception in an adjacent room. At present using a 300 ohm tee, perhaps I must try outside antenna with coax?

 

[gadget73]

if you can get the antenna outside it would help a lot. My house is concrete block and it used to have aluminum siding. Reception was never great inside. When we still had the plasma TV in the living room, it wiped out radio reception anywhere. I stuck a wire outside the window strung to a tree out back and it did wonders. Thats not an ideal FM antenna at all but it was still better.

my garage is all steel, similar problems. Haven't done an antenna yet. Now that its winter and I can't have the doors open when working the reception is really bad. The metal ceiling fans mess with it too, it causes a flutter that tracks with fan speed.

 

[jlovda]

I forgot to mention, a problem that may be just as bad is light dimmers using Triacs. When you chop up a sine wave, the "sharp corners" of the resulting wave contain lots of harmonics.