LED Illumination Interferes With Maritime Communication?

This link popped up on the Google Chrome, main page news feed. Curious to hear from our members regarding this.

https://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/2018/08/30/safety-concerns-led-lighting/

Lots of things interfer with radio transmission and reception. Part of the problem is that often times the entire electrical system on a boat is not up to any standards. It is very common to find the entire electrical system redone multiple times in a boat's life. One of the biggest problems is that inverters that do not produce pure sine waves are used.

I have a windless (normally the most power hungry device on a boat since it is used to lower and raise an anchor that may well weigh 50 pounds as well as a couple of hundred feet of chain)and when I turn it on I notice interference. Not to mention short wave installations are also often done poorly and are sometimes responsible for issues.

When I stay at Boot Key Harbor I leave via Sisters' Creek and have to pass within a hundred yards or so of the Voice of America radio towers that blast Cuba with American programming. One time I made the mistake of turning on my auto pilot before passing them and noticed that they activated it and changed the course on the LED display; but since I had not engaged the auto pilot there was no harm.

That being said I have never had any problem with my base station or my two mobile hand held units. I was easily able to pick up the USCG station in Key West when I was 70 miles away in Dry Tortugas and the weather stations on CH 2-9 in the Keys, Miami, and Ft. Myers. Course my antenna is at the top of a 53 foot mast and the broadcasts towers are even taller.

If only there were some way to shield vulnerable electronics from EMI. But that would probably cost a couple cents more, so forget that.

Resistive loads do not contribute to EMI as they don't alter the frequency of incoming power. Incandescent lighting is purely resistive. Just sayin'

night.hoodie said:

If only there were some way to shield vulnerable electronics from EMI. But that would probably cost a couple cents more, so forget that.

Resistive loads do not contribute to EMI as they don't alter the frequency of incoming power. Incandescent lighting is purely resistive. Just sayin'

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I am shocked that folks would make anything, including electronics, that are poorly designed and don't use the best quality components. I'll bet than never happens with flashlights.:laughing:

And perhaps we should all go back to landlines because of, well you know what. (Making fun) Thanks for your input, really, night.hoodie.

ragebot; interesting what you are saying about other items onboard causing issues. Thanks for relating your perspective and experience.

Is it the LED itself or the electronics associated with the LED's causing RF?

No dog in this fight, but am wondering that there will be 120V systems in the smallest craft as well as the larger ships?

Also, were there no issues with fluorescent or CFL's, and only LED's now ?

KITROBASKIN said:

And perhaps we should all go back to landlines because of, well you know what. (Making fun) Thanks for your input, really, night.hoodie.

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Radiation? Some think we should go back to the trees, and some think even the trees were a bad idea. Anyway, soon as we can replace the Sun with an LED, the energy crisis will be over. Natural light is important, not antiquated.

KITROBASKIN said:

Is it the LED itself or the electronics associated with the LED's causing RF?

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While the LED and driver are separate components, you really think a loose LED by itself could cause EMI? It is the electro-magnetics that cause interference. Of course you knew that. In this scenario, the LED and the driver are one. But I suppose it would not matter if it was an LED, or just an ordinary diode. What I have learned is that if there is interference, something is substandard, and I do not blame a flashlight, I blame a cheap cable, cheap connector, or a poorly engineered electrical system. Perhaps turning the boat 90° may help.

night.hoodie said:

[...] Perhaps turning the boat 90° may help.

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Unfortunately, that would most likely seriously compromise their sea-keeping characteristics.

Maybe it's all that pulse width modulation that is wreaking the havoc.

KITROBASKIN said:

Maybe it's all that pulse width modulation that is wreaking the havoc.

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That's been known to take down CPF threads as well, so sounds plausible to me.

Kestrel said:

No dog in this fight, but am wondering that there will be 120V systems in the smallest craft as well as the larger ships?

Also, were there no issues with fluorescent or CFL's, and only LED's now ?

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Most modern small craft have a basic 12v system (unless they are from Europe in which case it is 24v) which runs stuff like nav lights, nav systems, and VHF/short wave coms; stuff like fans and cigar lighter outlets for basic inverters to charge computers and smart phones. The next level system will have refrigeration and maybe AC, and possibly an auto pilot. The thing is to even run a basic fridge/freezer you will need a significant battery bank or a generator. Boats like mine will have around 4-500 watts of solar panels and a house battery bank of 4-500 amp hours; enough for a fridge but not AC. I have a good inverter but seldom use it instead plugging in a auto type inverter to charge/run my computer when at anchor.

Running stuff like AC and other creature comforts when the boat is moving often means not just the engine (and it's potential problems with interference) but a genset as well; along with an inverter/whatever to provide power at the right voltage. Most boats also have an automatic bilge pump to deal with water in the bilge; sometimes these seem to run 50% of the time or even more.

Point is there are a lot of things besides LEDs running sometimes at unexpected times using varying power sources. All of this takes place in a humid salt water environment and in conditions that can be bad. I would say the most common issue I see on boats is the electrical system.

Most interesting ragebot. Feel free to evolve from the primary subject of this thread.

Our 8 year old son was wondering why I laughed when reading the Kestrel. I told him it was flashlight humor. He humphed and went back to his allotted 20 minutes of ARK Survival on iPad. How many people could even imagine there was such a thing as flashlight humor?

The title of the article is less about accuracy and more about hook, seems to me.

Was also wondering if the suggestion written up in the article about testing for radio noise by adjusting squelch on a communication device might reveal something coming from a member's LED light source...

KITROBASKIN said:

This link popped up on the Google Chrome, main page news feed. Curious to hear from our members regarding this.

https://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/2018/08/30/safety-concerns-led-lighting/

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I was at a client's home recently, and he was talking to the cable guy about his Wi-Fi signal not being as strong as it should, even with a signal booster no more than 35-40 feet away from the area where he uses his laptop. The cable guy said that fluorescent lighting interferes with Wi-Fi signals, including CFL bulbs. I asked if LED bulbs would be better, and he said yes...

HighlanderNorth said:

I was at a client's home recently, and he was talking to the cable guy about his Wi-Fi signal not being as strong as it should, even with a signal booster no more than 35-40 feet away from the area where he uses his laptop. The cable guy said that fluorescent lighting interferes with Wi-Fi signals, including CFL bulbs. I asked if LED bulbs would be better, and he said yes...

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Cable guy expertise notwithstanding, wifi suffers immensely from unfortunate geometry of the room the wireless router is sitting, and from its orientation. Also, wifi doesn't really go through solid objects like walls and ceilings very well, it must find its path by bouncing off surfaces. Fluorescent lights will cause interference, however, especially as they age and become less efficient.

This guy:

http://themarineinstallersrant.blogspot.com/

works on boats for a living, has some pointed comments about how boat builders do things.

There actually have been quite a few LED lights built that used just batteries and a resistor to regulate the current.

I built a few myself and still like them. I haven't measured the RF emission but have assumed that it is fairly low. If done correctly, the efficiency is actually not that bad.

Of course it is difficult to meet the attraction of software controlled / push it again for a change features using resistored lights, so the production of them sort of died out.

There is an LED bulb from Genie that is being marketed as not interfering with garage door openers. This suggests that it's a low-RFI/EMI bulb. I bought one top test this and I plan to examine it's output on a spectrum analyzer.

Like HarryN said though, a simple resistor-ballasted LED bulb will do the same. Some of the early corncob style LED bulbs were built this way. They were terrible in terms of lifetime and color quality, but they produced no RFI.

The problem with electronically regulated LED bulbs is the same problem with CFL bulbs. The regulator circuit produced square waves which have a lot of harmonics spanning a wide swath of the RF spectrum. For that matter, most anything with a switching regulator in it (desktops, laptops, smartphones, etc) do the same thing for the same reason. Whether these emissions are properly shielded varies from manufacturer to manufacturer and model to model.

Unfortunately I don't see this issue getting solved anytime soon.

A few years back, I was doing some contract work as part of a team for DOD, and was at sea aboard the super carrier USS Ronald Reagan - CVN 76.

While my time on the cruise was not really long I did get invited to tour the Bridge by the XO, and there was a Sailor charting the ships location and course the old fashioned way, on paper, sorry I do not know the correct term for this. However, I did ask the Captain why they still do this? His response was 'Because if all the electronic navigation failed for whatever reason, we still want to know where we are.'

I thought that made real sense. But I don't think flashlights could have knocked out anything on that ship!

Also, they whistled me aboard on the Quater Deck, and I was allowed to dine in the Officers' Galley or Wardroom. They have great food in the Navy, and I did go to the enlisted Galley, too so I could talk to some of the crew.