Lights Control Television Reception

I am NOT an Electronics Technician, but from what I read, LED lighting, with its little Circuit Boards and Magic Stuff, can cause interference with other Magic Electronic Stuff.

So I ask - Do you have LED lighting? Your answer might help somebody to help you.

RobWNY wrote:
We are camping in a place where we can receive 18 over the air television stations using our Antenna and booster that came installed on our camper. If we don't use the booster, we get nothing.

Of course you won't get anything as that wall plate is NOT a booster, has no ability at all to amplify (or boost) the signal. Rather, all that wall plate does is route 12 vdc to the antenna head where there is a signal amplifier that boosts the strength of the received signal. You may lose the signal when turning on a light if it's an LED bulb that in effect radiates an interfering signal - if this is a concern then switch to LED bulbs that don't.

SoundGuy is right. If you don't supply power to the preamplifier in the antenna head, you won't receive any signals because an unpowered amplifier won't pass anything.

My trailer came with all LED lights on the ceiling. They have a switch mode regulator in each fixture and if we turn any of the lights in the vicinity of the roof top antenna, they will wipe out several TV stations. If your fan has a speed control on it, it may be spewing as much Radio Frequency Interference as the lights (if they are LEDs). Hope this helps you understand whats happening and no, I haven't figured out how block the interference yet.

Ken

Flourscent lights or more specifically the ballast in them can cause electro magnetic interference (EMI). It can do exactly what is happening to you, shuts down the TV. I understand that LED lights can do the same. I had the same thing happen to me with flourscent so I changed to LED and have had no further problems. The specific flourscent light causing the problem was due to a ballast going bad. Had no problem until the ballast started to fail.

I have the same issue, but it is not the LED's. The bath fan must be wired to the 12 volt antenna booster circuit. Every time I run the fan, I loose the reception/picture. Shut off the fan and bingo, the TV works perfect. Low voltage or ? I have no LED's.

The information about LED lamps causing interference is correct. The type that has a built in voltage regulator might last longer, but the regulator is the problem. If you can find some cheap LED,s that have no regulator, buy them so you will have at least those lamps while watching TV.

The information about the wall plate is only partially correct. That little switch does more than turn on power to the amplifier, it also switches between cable input and antenna input. In other words, the antenna is completely disconnected with the switch off. Some think that the amplifier does great things because it works so great turned on, but in reality it only overcomes signal loss in the system downstream.

I have installed small ceramic capacitors, as close as possible across the wires, on fan motors with some degree of success. Consider getting a good fan in place of the buzz and hum unit commonly installed.

Thanks for the answer! We don't watch television often enough while camping for it to be a concern but it's good to know it's not a wiring issue. We just won't have those lights on if the television is on. I did switch out all of my lights when the camper was new to LED's that weren't supposed to cause interference. The cost was over $10 for each bulb and I had 23 to replace. It's not worth spending a lot of money to replace the bulbs again. Especially when the ones I bought claimed not to cause issues. The next ones could have the same claims and still cause problems. I still don't understand why the bathroom fan causes the television signal to go out too but I'm also not worried about that. Like I said, we don't watch a lot of television when camping. Lynnmor, thanks for the info about the switch also making a swithc between antenna and cable. I didn't know that.

Lynnmor wrote:
The information about the wall plate is only partially correct. That little switch does more than turn on power to the amplifier, it also switches between cable input and antenna input.

Of course, but obviously the OP is confused enough about what that wall plate does and doesn't do, the point being it's not a booster (as he referred to it), has no ability to amplify the signal coming from the antenna head. It's purpose is to route 12 vdc from the trailer's 12 vdc electrical system to the head and, as you say, when power is disconnected from the head routes the cable input on the side of the trailer through to the television input. Since it seems necessary to satisfy the pundits, next time I'll be more specific. :R

You can now buy LED's from China on eBay for well under $1.00 each in lots of ten. The problem is finding ones without the voltage regulator as even most of the dirt cheap ones now have it. If an LED is advertised with a wide voltage tolerance or not polarity dependent, it has a regulator.

Ok, several possible issues.. FIrst the BOOSTER is not the booster. The BOOSTER (The real one) os in the antenna head. the box in the wall is the power supply. THe ELectronics up top need 12 volts. Now several things can cause those volts to be reduced.. MOST COMMON is low batteries coupled with high load (Fan, incandescent lights) For example a 1141 lamp is about 1.5 amps EACH 1156 around 2 amps.. SO a 2 light fixture is a lot of load.

Another is corrosion on the connectors.. Specifially the connector to the antenna itself and then the one at roof level (yes there is one buried but it's there).

Next we have LED and Fluorescent lamps The light from an LED is actually electromatic "Noise" far as your TV is concerned.. The better LED's filter out the lower frequency (Radio and television) Noise leaving only the light you see. but alas. not all are that good.

Fluorescent have a 12 volt "Ballast" This is actually a high frequency inverter and it can spew harmonics all the way to TV as well

Now "Shouldn't I get SOMETHING even with it turned off" Not if the RF is wired with high quality coax. no, for the output stage in the antenna is OFF. and thus there is no output,