Does Rosie play nice with HAM radio RF/antennas?

[aaapilot]

Hi all;
I know many here are HAM types, so was interested to know if the Rosie inverter/charger causes interference in the HAM bands?  As I'm sure you know, much of the solar equipment on the market today causes noise for antennas. Since the designers are HAM folks, I'm guessing not, but just want to be sure   Would pair it with a Hawke's Bay 120.  Thanks much!

Dave K5DKY

[qrper]

Hi, Dave,

While by pool of experience with Rosie and my ham radio gear is only ankle deep, so far, I haven't heard a peep out of her. Been running FT8 and so far, nothing has shown up on the spectrum display on my radios of any odd or strange signals popping up.

Later in the coming few weeks, I plan on running my spectrum analyzer up close and personal with Rosie and see what it can hear.

Mike, wb8vge

[aaapilot]

Thanks Mike!  I beta tested PV Power inverters in the early 2000's and they were extremely noisy.  I've operated other brands over the years and found SMA string inverters to be the best with no noise.  I ran a Magnum PAE-4448 inverter/battery charger at my last QTH, but it was AC coupled with other equipment, so I never determined how 'quiet' it was by itself.  Looking forward to getting a Rosie and building a new battery system at our new location.

[qrper]

That all being said, many (if not all ) of the Chinese inverters are made to a price point. And one of the first things to go is the pieces parts used for RFI reduction. I purchased a cheap Chinese inverter from ebay that produced so much RFI, if I could have figured a way to key it, I'd have the ultimate 40 meter band master transmitter.

The Trace SW5548 that lives in my shack never cause me any RFI that I could detect. I suspect it's the metal box and general lack of plastic that keeps the nasties inside.

mike, wb8vge

[boB]

Rosie does emit some every 30 kHz or so on the HF band.

That being said, some work is being done to help mitigate this.  That is, to at least find the correct ferrites and placement of those and over which cables. Possibly some caps to ground to complete common mode filtering.

I don't know, but some noise may be from the CANBUS cable ?  That should be an easy one if part of the problem.

First thing of course is to place the Rosie away from the antenna.

More as we figure more out.  Sorry I don't have more info at the moment.

bob

[aaapilot]

Thanks Bob! Glad this is one of the items on the radar screen.  Couldn't agree more about keeping power equipment and antennas as separate as possible.  My normal operation uses battery power to run the HAM Schack, but I rarely operate above 100 watts.  I did acquire an Elecraft KPA 500, so that may be changing

[boB]

This is by no means an laboratory setup to test for RFI generated by Rosie. I have a short antenna installed into the RF input jack of my spectrum analyzer. There are a couple of spikes, around 750 mHz.

I sweep from 100kHz to 1gHz.
mike, wb8vge

Not a valid attachment ID.

Now THAT would be weird to have anything up as high as  750 MHz  at that level !

What are the conditions here ?  What was the inverter doing at that time. 

Does the UHF spikes go away when you turn the Rosie off ?

Is it when the inverter is off or on ? 


boB

[qrper]

This is by no means an laboratory setup to test for RFI generated by Rosie. I have a short antenna installed into the RF input jack of my spectrum analyzer. There are a couple of spikes, around 750 mHz.

I sweep from 100kHz to 1gHz.
mike, wb8vge

Not a valid attachment ID.

Now THAT would be weird to have anything up as high as  750 MHz  at that level !

What are the conditions here ?  What was the inverter doing at that time. 

Does the UHF spikes go away when you turn the Rosie off ?

Is it when the inverter is off or on ? 


boB

When I turn the inverter off, the blip goes away. However.... and I've been thinking about this all night long, that blip is too strong. I'm going to dig deeper into this and see what happens. Like I said, this was a quick check and not in a lab setup.

More later... film at 11!

mike