Macerating Toilet Blog: LED's Might Trigger Radio Disturbance While Boating

Coast Guard Stresses Caution That LED's Could Create Radio Disturbance

Back in 2010, experts brought up the alert that a conversion to LED navigating lights can easily have some unintentional consequences, including distorted color shifts. And we've long been definitely concerned about LED lights, both interior and exterior, disrupting VHF and AIS radio transmissions.

The problem with radio interference has actually just recently received the attention of the U.S. Coast Guard, which released the following Marine Safety Alert on August 15, 2018.

" The U.S. Coast Guard has actually acquired records from crews, ship owners, examiners and other mariners concerning bad reception on VHF frequencies used for radiotelephone, electronic selective calling (DSC) and automatic identification systems (AIS) when in the area of light emitting diode (LED) lighting on-board ships (e.g., navigation lights, searchlights and floodlights, interior and exterior lights, adornment).

" Radio frequency disturbance caused by these LED lamps were found to produce prospective safety risks. For instance, the maritime rescue coordination facility in one port was not able to get in touch with a ship associated with a traffic separation scheme event by VHF radio. Your macerating toilet experts talk about how that ship likewise experienced extremely bad AIS reception. Various other ships in various ports have experienced deterioration of the VHF receivers, including AIS, triggered by their LED navigation lights. LED lighting installed near VHF antennas has actually also shown to compound the reception.

" Strong radio interference from LED sources may not be instantly apparent to maritime radio users. Nonetheless, it might be actually feasible to test for the existence of LED interference by using the following procedures:

1. Shut off LED light(s).

2. Tune the VHF radio to a silent channel (e.g. Ch. 13).

3. Calibrate the VHF radio's squelch control until the radio outputs audio noise.

4. Re-adjust the VHF radio's squelch control until the audio noise is quiet, just slightly over the sound threshold.

5. Turn on the LED light( s).

-- In the event that the radio currently outputs audio noise, then the LED lights have actually raised the noise floor. (Noise floor is generally the amount of interfering signals/ static received past the particular signal or stations being checked.).

-- If the radio does not output audio noise, then the LED lights have indeed not raised the noise floor.

" In the event that the noise floor is found to have been raised, then it is most likely that both shipboard VHF marine radio and AIS reception are actually being broken down by LED lighting.

" In order to identify the complete impact of this particular interference, the Coast Guard requests those experiencing this problem to mention their experiences to Coast Guard Navigation Center. Select "Maritime Telecommunications" on the subject drop down list, click on "Contact Us" in the menu bar after that quickly describe the make and model of LED lighting and radios impacted, distance from lighting to antennas and radios effected, as well as any other information that may help comprehend the range of the issue.

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