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The RFI black book
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At the beginning of November, I posted regarding the journal I was going to start regarding my RFI. I wanted to log ideas to try, results from the ideas and detailed records of the RFI. In the past, it was scribbled on a paper here and there and when needed to refer to I could not find the notes. This was a great help and allowed me to track what did and did not work.
I then blogged on December 1st regarding ferrites I had purchased. They were bought and arrived in mid-November and I had a chance to give them a go. Now in my post on the ferrites, I did mention I purchased a brand called Fair-Rite, which I felt where a very good brand. I wanted to make the first test for this product an easy access one. I have mentioned in the past our electronic Maytag washing machine always had issues with RF from my operating. When I transmitted the washers would stop and just hummed. If the machine was not being used but still plugged in and I transmitted all the LED lights would come on and it would start to buzz. The only solution while operating was to turn off the power to the washer. In the past, I tried some snap-on chokes from MFJ and put them on the washers AC power cord, which did not work. I snapped on 2 of the Fair-rite chokes and to this day I have had no issues at all with the washing machine. The machine can sit there powered on or doing a load of laundry and no issues at all.
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Fair-Rite with 4 loops (4th on backside)
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That was a very promising sign to me and I was thrilled to see such positive results. Back to my RFI journal. The only issue I was facing was my contest program N1MM+ while I was transmitting would freeze. I was not able to transmit a contest reply and that would prove frustrating. After a short time the program resumed but that could be 3 seconds, 30 seconds or a PC reboot. The other issue was my N1MM+ programs logging screen would go black and sometimes the whole program had to be rebooted for it to work again. I felt I had narrowed down the issue to my ground leads. I have 3 of them, the Icom 7610, LDG autotuner and the PC metal frame. Each of these 14 gauge green ground wires is fastened to a copper plate where the main ground is secured. I wound the ground wire 4 times through a clamp on the Fair-Rite toroid and also on the incoming number 6 ground cable (I put 3 snap-on ferrites on that as there was no way to wrap that size of cable). I spent the whole weekend on the radio in the CQ WW DX CW contest on all bands and full power. I did not have one issue at all. Since then, I have taken part in CWops and MST weekly one-hour contests without issue again. My fingers are crossed that I have found the right ferrite for the job.
