Best equipment for ham radio (no rfi interfere)

[73powerstroke]

So the capacitor trick works on one array well but it doesn't work on another that I think is closer to the antenna
Here's a video demonstration of how well it actually works. Pretty amazing ? ?

 

[Tecnodave]

By far the very lowest EMI/RFI inverter is the Exeltech.......these are built for the communications industry.

They are not cost competitive with cheap gear....!!!

As far as low EMI/RFI from a solar charge controller.......lots of luck , except for non-switch mode they ALL emit trash on the ham bands I.E. NOT MPPT or PWM ,,,, simple series or shunt mode regulators lots of luck finding those
I engineered my own only to be used only for that use....( no where as near efficient as PWM or MPPT)

Closely matched panels to battery will result in 80-85 % effeciency verses >96% for a good MPPT such as the Classic, Outback, or Schneider

My main controllers are Midnight Classic’s 150’s using the minimum difference between battery charge voltage vs panel voltage....( results is way less EMI/RFI than systems using large difference between battery voltage and panel voltage) This alone will reduce EMI/RFI drastically.....a point missed by most users

Way to make lots of EMI/RFI.....use a 600 volt controller to charge a 24 volt or 48 volt battery...


My experience........Licensed Communications Engineer (since 1964)

Note......American made gear must meet FCC class B emissions standards....I have never seen any Chinese gear that does meet FCC Class B emissions standards

 

[Substrate]

Ok, looks like amateurs need to put the Exeltech inverters on the test list. Low emi/rfi might be worth the additional cost.

As far as low EMI/RFI from a solar charge controller.......lots of luck , except for non-switch mode they ALL emit trash on the ham bands I.E. NOT MPPT or PWM ,,,, simple series or shunt mode regulators lots of luck finding those

From a charge controller standpoint ...

I've had very good luck with Morningstar, Genasun, and some others pwm and mppt. But are we on the same page as to how we hook it up ??

I don't hang these off the dc rails (via the battery of course) of my transceiver, which maybe has a simple cap on the input.

That is, in my scenario, I have TWO batteries - and using a "hot swap" arrangement to keep charging and discharging needs totally isolated. Thus the dc rails of the transceiver never see any noise thrown onto it.

Radiated emi from an inverter is a different story - so we'll stick for now on the SCC issues.

When my system is isolated like this, I can bring nearly any SCC to about 3 inches away from my antenna feedline, or even say a short vertical and not hear *anything*.

This is the example I've tried to point out - as amateurs we are quick to point the finger, but I'll bet that 99% are hanging a controller on the battery dc rails - and hence noise is modulated onto it - which the transceiver was never designed to handle, expecting only a battery or power supply - not an SCC tagged onto that line.

So when making conclusions, one has to be very careful between radiated emi/rfi, and *conducted* noise traveling down the dc input path - and depending on grounding - that noise has been conducted all over the ground of the transceiver itself, which it was not designed to handle - typically like a single 100uf electrolytic cap on the dc input leads.

What makes it even more confusing (and probably why this thread is best left to amateur forums), is that now that a possible very clean SCC from a radiated emi/rfi standpoint, but puts a bit of junk on the dc output rails, travels to your transceiver, and since the coax is sharing the ground of that, if it has common-mode issues, it travels right up to your feedpoint where it *acts* like rfi/emi.

Propeller-head time. The simplest solution if you can't use the cap-trick to clean up gear that was not designed to operate with each other in the first place, might be to adopt the two-battery hot-swap system for total isolation of charge and discharge duties.

 

[Tecnodave]

I do have two completely separate systems which are not interconnected in any way so when I need low noise mode my radio’s and medical gear are only connected to the fully charged bank. The solar input charges the other bank. Most of the EMI/RFI is radiated down the wiring, not emitted through the air. Each system is large enough to fully power my needs. 100% redundancy....I have had only one “lights out” power failure in over 30 years...My trusty Cotek SK-1500 inverter failed but throwing a few switches I had full power in minutes.

On Exeltech.....All U.S. Embassies worldwide are equipped with Exeltech inverters to power the “Last Ditch” communications network in case it all goes to sh**

 

[Substrate]

Right on - you run like I do! Sure simplifies the noise issue - or at least lets me track down stupid stuff like panel displays actually doing rfi/emi.

Interesting - I've been a Samlex guy for a long time, but I'll look into Exeltech!

 

[73powerstroke]

By far the very lowest EMI/RFI inverter is the Exeltech.......these are built for the communications industry.

They are not cost competitive with cheap gear....!!!

As far as low EMI/RFI from a solar charge controller.......lots of luck , except for non-switch mode they ALL emit trash on the ham bands I.E. NOT MPPT or PWM ,,,, simple series or shunt mode regulators lots of luck finding those
I engineered my own only to be used only for that use....( no where as near efficient as PWM or MPPT)

Closely matched panels to battery will result in 80-85 % effeciency verses >96% for a good MPPT such as the Classic, Outback, or Schneider

My main controllers are Midnight Classic’s 150’s using the minimum difference between battery charge voltage vs panel voltage....( results is way less EMI/RFI than systems using large difference between battery voltage and panel voltage) This alone will reduce EMI/RFI drastically.....a point missed by most users

Way to make lots of EMI/RFI.....use a 600 volt controller to charge a 24 volt or 48 volt battery...


My experience........Licensed Communications Engineer (since 1964)

Note......American made gear must meet FCC class B emissions standards....I have never seen any Chinese gear that does meet FCC Class B emissions standards

Wow ? you made some good points about the voltage. I noticed that myself when I went to 3s back to 2 series.
Thanks for this info. It's really good info most over look like you said.
So how can you use the panels with out a cc?

 

[73powerstroke]

Ok, looks like amateurs need to put the Exeltech inverters on the test list. Low emi/rfi might be worth the additional cost.


From a charge controller standpoint ...

I've had very good luck with Morningstar, Genasun, and some others pwm and mppt. But are we on the same page as to how we hook it up ??

I don't hang these off the dc rails (via the battery of course) of my transceiver, which maybe has a simple cap on the input.

That is, in my scenario, I have TWO batteries - and using a "hot swap" arrangement to keep charging and discharging needs totally isolated. Thus the dc rails of the transceiver never see any noise thrown onto it.

Radiated emi from an inverter is a different story - so we'll stick for now on the SCC issues.

When my system is isolated like this, I can bring nearly any SCC to about 3 inches away from my antenna feedline, or even say a short vertical and not hear *anything*.

This is the example I've tried to point out - as amateurs we are quick to point the finger, but I'll bet that 99% are hanging a controller on the battery dc rails - and hence noise is modulated onto it - which the transceiver was never designed to handle, expecting only a battery or power supply - not an SCC tagged onto that line.

So when making conclusions, one has to be very careful between radiated emi/rfi, and *conducted* noise traveling down the dc input path - and depending on grounding - that noise has been conducted all over the ground of the transceiver itself, which it was not designed to handle - typically like a single 100uf electrolytic cap on the dc input leads.

What makes it even more confusing (and probably why this thread is best left to amateur forums), is that now that a possible very clean SCC from a radiated emi/rfi standpoint, but puts a bit of junk on the dc output rails, travels to your transceiver, and since the coax is sharing the ground of that, if it has common-mode issues, it travels right up to your feedpoint where it *acts* like rfi/emi.

Propeller-head time. The simplest solution if you can't use the cap-trick to clean up gear that was not designed to operate with each other in the first place, might be to adopt the two-battery hot-swap system for total isolation of charge and discharge duties.

Like I said I don't hook my radios to anything but grid. I'm not going to trust 500 to 2k in equipment to a Chinesium inverter. And I sure don't want to feed it off a nasty mpp. I'm also 24v system w 26 panels. My system is simply to run my ac for free during the day

 

[Tecnodave]

So how can you use the panels with out a cc?

I am using a CC.......just not what you expected. I use a simple series regulator which is analogue.....pass transistors with a control circuit. It does not switch like a PWM or MPPT. Operates as a series resistance between the battery and the solar array. Very simple but not terribly efficient. It does waste 30 % of the power as heat.

On the main system I use mostly Classic 150’s but this is for general use, and yes I do get EMI/RFI on that system
In some applications like my wi-fi repeater which is 3 miles from my house use only very small amounts of power. It consists of two routers back to back “bending the wi-fi signal over a ridge top” I have a 20 watt panel there with a simple series regulator, it really doesn't matter if I waste 20-40 % of the power. Both transmitters draw only a few watts.

I do have quite a few good controllers including two Classic 150’s and two Kid’s and a 60 amp PWM Morningstar but for my medical use the EMI is not tolerated by my medical device which uses multiple waveforms for direct use in the body. This system is totally isolated from everything else. Its 20-30 watts and a small AGM battery with a simple series regulator. The medical use is measured in milliwatts.........Its not about the effeciency here but the NO EMI/RFI that makes wasting 10-20 watts to get a few watts very pure is totally worth it.

The wi-fi repeater uses only 1-2 watts at maximum throughput so wasting most of a 20 watt panel is no big deal.

Im using DDWRT software which is downloaded to Linksys WRT54GL routers making them do things that they will not do out of the box. I run at about 180-200 mw output from the transmitter chips into a 30 dbi gain parabolic dish antenna and get 12-20 miles range on wi-fi........dont try this at home if you can see the antenna in front of you! The router/repeaters and highly directional antenna’s are located 30 feet up a communications tower.

Good information on this can be found at DDWRT.COM in Dresden, Germany......READ...the WIKI

I started tinkering electricity before the transistor was in popular use......doing solar in 1965-1966 there was no MPPT or even PWM......We used simple series or shunt regulators or big zener diodes to protect the battery banks from overcharge

 

[Skypower]

The funny thing is my inverters (LV 6548)are cleaner and have a better sine wave than the grid. The only exception is when the only thing on (light load) is the Keurig coffee maker is working (pulses on and off to control the heating element) which plays havoc with the inverter trying to hold exact voltage at low load. The sine wave still isn’t too bad but just enough to mess a bit with the cheaper LED lighting. An all band receiver is actually better when off grid in the house as long as the antenna sides are away from the ground array outside. Dang that charge control section of the inverter dumps noise out to the panels.

 

[Tecnodave]

All of my inverters are way cleaner waveshape than the grid. The whole problem with the grid is there is lots of trash running down the lines. Modern switch mode welders, switching power supplies, etc. make a soup of EMI which is not in phase with each other and often makes very strange combinations of wave shape when they combine on the lines. With my oscilloscope connected to the grid its not a pretty picture, Tectronics 350 mhz analog 4 channel shows 10 khz signals riding down the 60 hz lines, they are filtered off to a point but still not a pretty waveshape. My cleanest power supply waveshape is my Onan 6.5 kw generator....by far, but this beast is a huge old cast iron unit with huge rotating mass at 1800 rpm unlike portable generators which are always 3600 rpm (cheaper...) but way less stable and way dirtier waveshape, probably has something to do with rotating mass and 80 lb. of copper in the generator windings verses the modern chinese generator which has what...6 lb. at best

 

[realpinochet]

I dont use coax. I use balanced feedline.
The thing I'm trying to figure out is what inverters are quiet enough for ham radio. What charge controllers are quiet enough. I would think lf inverters would be top of the list.
I've heard midnite solar and outback were quiet for CCs but some people have said that they were terrible.

In the military don't they put things that produce interference like chargers etc in a faraday cage or sorts? Let me know if you solve this ..I'll be in the same boat hopefully soon. Be lucky you don't live close to me when I fire up the baofeng..lol 73/s

 

[73powerstroke]

I am using a CC.......just not what you expected. I use a simple series regulator which is analogue.....pass transistors with a control circuit. It does not switch like a PWM or MPPT. Operates as a series resistance between the battery and the solar array. Very simple but not terribly efficient. It does waste 30 % of the power as heat.

On the main system I use mostly Classic 150’s but this is for general use, and yes I do get EMI/RFI on that system
In some applications like my wi-fi repeater which is 3 miles from my house use only very small amounts of power. It consists of two routers back to back “bending the wi-fi signal over a ridge top” I have a 20 watt panel there with a simple series regulator, it really doesn't matter if I waste 20-40 % of the power. Both transmitters draw only a few watts.

I do have quite a few good controllers including two Classic 150’s and two Kid’s and a 60 amp PWM Morningstar but for my medical use the EMI is not tolerated by my medical device which uses multiple waveforms for direct use in the body. This system is totally isolated from everything else. Its 20-30 watts and a small AGM battery with a simple series regulator. The medical use is measured in milliwatts.........Its not about the effeciency here but the NO EMI/RFI that makes wasting 10-20 watts to get a few watts very pure is totally worth it.

The wi-fi repeater uses only 1-2 watts at maximum throughput so wasting most of a 20 watt panel is no big deal.

Im using DDWRT software which is downloaded to Linksys WRT54GL routers making them do things that they will not do out of the box. I run at about 180-200 mw output from the transmitter chips into a 30 dbi gain parabolic dish antenna and get 12-20 miles range on wi-fi........dont try this at home if you can see the antenna in front of you! The router/repeaters and highly directional antenna’s are located 30 feet up a communications tower.

Good information on this can be found at DDWRT.COM in Dresden, Germany......READ...the WIKI

I started tinkering electricity before the transistor was in popular use......doing solar in 1965-1966 there was no MPPT or even PWM......We used simple series or shunt regulators or big zener diodes to protect the battery banks from overcharge

I used to flash the ddwrt and before that I used tomatoe.. I've tried many old blue linksys.. routers. I used to sell them to people on ebay. But it was worth the trouble

 

[73powerstroke]

The funny thing is my inverters (LV 6548)are cleaner and have a better sine wave than the grid. The only exception is when the only thing on (light load) is the Keurig coffee maker is working (pulses on and off to control the heating element) which plays havoc with the inverter trying to hold exact voltage at low load. The sine wave still isn’t too bad but just enough to mess a bit with the cheaper LED lighting. An all band receiver is actually better when off grid in the house as long as the antenna sides are away from the ground array outside. Dang that charge control section of the inverter dumps noise out to the panels.

I think my hvlv2424 is the same way.
I'm also trying to move panels away from my loop

 

[Pierre]

Any more folk out there using the Victron equipment ? I would very much like to hear about your experiences as Victron is big in ZA - not so much the other brands mentioned in the above posts.
73.

 

[K8MEJ]

Any more folk out there using the Victron equipment ? I would very much like to hear about your experiences as Victron is big in ZA - not so much the other brands mentioned in the above posts.
73.

In my experience, Victron inverters and DC-DC chargers don't cause me any EMI/RFI grief. Their MPPTs, however, are noisy.
I have 2000 watts of solar on my RV going through two different Victron MPPTs and depending on the band and amount of sun, they can pretty much wipe out HF during the day. I have experimented with high-current DC line filters both before and after the MPPT and they do clean up a lot of the noise that is conducted on the DC wiring in the RV, but if I power my radios directly from AC (via a DC power supply running off the inverter) or directly off DC from the house batteries in the RV, I can't operate HF during the day. It sucks for Field Day or the Ohio QSO Party, both Summer time events here in Ohio. I have large torroidial ferrites on everything going into and out of my Victron equipment and still get noise.

Until reading this thread, I hadn't considered running a separate battery for the radios during the day that is not connected at all to the main house battery bank. I will have to try that. If it works, I'll then try a small isolated 12V/12V DC-DC charger between the main house battery and the radio battery. I assume that will bring noise back in, but I can automate turning that DC-DC charger on an off via a relay on the Cerbo GX so that I won't forget to keep the radio battery charged.

Has anyone tried using one of the Victron Peak Power Pack batteries for ham radio operation? I might have to get one of these on my next order just to try it out. It has a built-in charger and I'd be curious to see how noisy it is.

 

[Substrate]

That's all I've ever asked amateurs plagued with this problem is to try to see if a totally isolated battery (with no scc hanging off the battery) makes any difference.

If it proves to be the silver bullet, then a 2-battery hot-swap solution (one for discharge, another isolated for solar charging only) might be considered.

Best of all, with LiFePO4 being so light in weight, one could carry TWO 50ah units into the field, instead of just one big 100ah lead acid with an scc hanging off it. Easier on the back. Actually, if one considers that most don't discharge lead-acid beyond 50%, then the comparison would be more accurate to humping around 200ah of lead.

 

[JoeHam]

Until reading this thread, I hadn't considered running a separate battery for the radios during the day that is not connected at all to the main house battery bank.

Completely separate batteries is all I use for Amateur Radio for years now. All LiFePO4.

I started in the mobile when I didn’t want to run wires through the firewall and didn’t want to fight ignition noise. A 60Ah Bioenno lasts a good long time when mobile.

Then I built an off grid station which required it.

Finally I did the same at the home shack. I rotate two different 100Ah DIY batteries. One is charging via solar away from the shack while the other is in use.

Oh, and SOTA is small capacity LiFePO4 stuff, mostly DIY.

I do use various 48V nominal inverters to power an SPE 1.3 kFA amplifier at home and an Elecraft KPA-500 at the off grid station.

The Elecraft radios love the higher voltage of 4S LiFePO4 as it reduces IMD artifacts. I think most current radios can handle the higher voltage.

 

[Substrate]

Right on JoeHam !

Early on I wanted to find out why I was having NONE of the problems that others were having when the poo-pooed any form of charge controller that wasn't a 1970's hysteresis type, or power wasting solutions like linear regulators.

It was because I wasn't hanging my pwm or mppt controller across my dc line going to the battery and rig. So THATS why I can bring those controllers within 3 inches of my feedline / antenna feedpoints!

When queried, nearly all who bashed the tech or brands, had the scc hanging off their dc line. Not me, my battery was not being charged and discharged at the same time like that. That developed into the simple solution of a 2-battery isolated hot-swap.

Well, whaddya know? Those models proclaimed to be noisy weren't so from a *radiated* rfi standpoint, but from a /conducted/ standpoint.

Are there going to be exceptions where they are truly bad from a radiated RFI standpoint? Sure.

Sure, but generalized sweeping statements meant that testing between radiated and conducted noise were never carried out. I did, and was pleasantly surprised to find a simple solution. Isolation.

 

[fromport]

Oh yeah boy do they radiate. It’s not the panels because they are true DC but the charge control constantly testing/teasing the array for the best power point. If you have an inverter with a built in Solar charge control, no panels and it’s under power from the batteries, for god’s sakes don’t touch the PV inputs with your fingers. Some inverters have enough juice there to give ya a dirt nap. Who knew the inputs would have output right? Not immediately obvious.

What if you gave up efficiency?
Use PWM controller, basically on/off , either charging or not, to charge the batteries?
If your equipment is fed directly from the batteries that would limit RFI I would think.

 

[Tecnodave]

What if you gave up efficiency?
Use PWM controller, basically on/off , either charging or not, to charge the batteries?
If your equipment is fed directly from the batteries that would limit RFI I would think.

A PWM controller switches at 28khz with lots of harmonics, some make more interference than MPPT types,

But in a direct comparison:
a Midnight Classic 150 doing a 72 volt conversion to 28 volts
verses
a Morningstar 60 amp PWM controller doing a 36 volt conversion to 28 volts

The Morningstar was (EMI/RFI) quieter at comparable power levels but not by a huge amount