Interference with TV reception

Kitman

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Hey brains trust, I need some assistance.

Last year I noticed that when my control boxes powered on I had some interference with some TV stations, mainly ABC, however, it wasn't an issue since we were looking at the lights and not the TV.

Now this year I have major issues where as soon as the boxes power on I lose all TV channels and can't watch a thing, I got a new antenna, changed it's position and dialed it in with a signal meter, however, the issue remains, now tonight my neighbor said that it is affecting their TV reception also. I really don't want a complaint lodged and have someone come and investigate and get a nice fine for causing issues with digital TV reception in my area, so I want to try fixing this.

I believe it is one of the control boxes that is causing the issue, however, I need to narrow it down which I will do, but once I sort it out then what? what item in the box could be causing this much interference?

Inside the boxes, I have Power supplies, Sandevice controller, Raspberry pi with Wifi and one box that I think could have the issue has a plug pack power supply, which device do I start investigating first?
 

AAH

I love blinky lights :)
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Start by powering up everything with no lights on and see if the interference is there. If it's there then it's not likely to be from the light switching. If it is there then I'd try powering down the transmitter enabled devices starting with the Pi and any other wifi things. If the interference only occurs after powering the lights then you may have issues that may require ferrite cores installed.
 

Kitman

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I just tested and unplugging 3 boxes fixed the issue, however as soon as power is applied to any of the boxes the interference starts.
No lights were blinking at the point, simply plugging in the mains power the interference began.

I wouldn't think I would have 4 power supplies faulty in the same way.
 

AAH

I love blinky lights :)
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Try unplugging the controllers from the power supplies to see if it follows the power supply or controller.
 

Kitman

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OK I will give that a shot tomorrow, can't do it tonight since there are so many flying insects out tonight it looks like something out of a Steven King movie lol
 

Kitman

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Since it is affecting all 3 boxes all with different power supplies in them and different controllers there has to be some similarity with them. There is even 2 different Raspberry pi's and 3 different wireless devices.
 

fasteddy

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Try powering up and then disconnecting the wireless devices one at a time to see if it is one of your wireless devices causing the issue

Issue can also be caused by transmitters especially if the antenna is lower than the TV antenna, but this doesn't sound like the issue here though, but it may still have something to do with your wireless devices, so check those out as well
 

QLDKing(Brad)

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I just tested and unplugging 3 boxes fixed the issue, however as soon as power is applied to any of the boxes the interference starts.
No lights were blinking at the point, simply plugging in the mains power the interference began.
Would changing power points fix this?
 

Kitman

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So I have done some extensive testing today on 2 of the boxes, the one for my reindeer and the one for my icicles, my sleigh box is the third that I didn't perform any testing on however it was unplugged for all tests.

Icicle box:
With power plugged in and going just to the power supply and nothing else no issues with Antenna.
With power plugged in and power supply, 12v - 5v converter and raspberry pi 2 no issues with Antenna.
With power plugged in and power supply, 12v - 5v converter, raspberry pi 2 and Sandevice E6804 no issues with the antenna.
With power plugged in and power supply, 12v - 5v converter, raspberry pi 2, sandevice E6804 and 1 string of Icicles (doesn't matter which) all TV channels affected. There is no sequence running and none of the lights are on, there is just power to the lights.

Reindeer box.
With power plugged in and going just to the power supply and nothing else no issues with Antenna.
With power plugged in and power supply, 12v - 5v converter and raspberry pi 3 no issues with Antenna.
With power plugged in and power supply, 12v - 5v converter, raspberry pi 3 and Sandevice E6804 no issues with the antenna.
With power plugged in and power supply, 12v - 5v converter, raspberry pi 3, sandevice E682 and 1 reindeer (doesn't matter which) all TV channels affected. There is no sequence running and none of the lights are on, there is just power to the lights.

I had both control boxes plugged in with no lights hanging off them and also no antenna issues were noticed.

The issue only appears to happen when the lights are physically connected but no sequence is running just power is being supplied.

I did get some ferrite filters and put them on the mains power cable however that made no difference. Does anyone have any idea here?
 

darylc

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What sort of power supplies are you running? Hooking lights up to them will help act as an antenna if your PSU is putting out interference I think.
 

Kitman

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What sort of power supplies are you running? Hooking lights up to them will help act as an antenna if your PSU is putting out interference I think.
Just some of the cheap ones from china. The 2 boxes I have tested with both have 12v power supplies in them, 1 has 2 power supplies the other only has 1.

I got some more ferrite's that I can try hooking over the power cables right out of the power supply.
 

fasteddy

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Yes if the power supplies have a lot of interference and then you connect a string to it, it will then act as an antenna thus amplifying the interference. Are you able to swap out the power supply with one you know is not causing interference so you can confirm this
 

darylc

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Just some of the cheap ones from china. The 2 boxes I have tested with both have 12v power supplies in them, 1 has 2 power supplies the other only has 1.

I got some more ferrite's that I can try hooking over the power cables right out of the power supply.

I can lend you a meanwell if you need something to help rule out your PSUs?
 

Kitman

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Trouble is I have so many power supplies it would cost me a fortune to replace all of them with Meanwell power supplies. I might have a computer power supply kicking around I can try it with, if the issue goes away then it's the power supply.

I do have some other spare power supplies brand new but again they are the cheap Chinese ones so might have the same issue.

I tried a ferrite on one of the output strings and it is still causing an issue so I guess that won't filter out the noise.
 
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