Coast Guard Safety Alert: LED lights interfere with VHF & AIS radios

[glcalahan]

Okay this thread has prompted me to think of my own newly rebuilt mast head. I have installed an LED Aqua Signal tri-light next to my new Shakespeare VHF ant. My coax is larger/heavier than RG58 but can't recall size. Anyone know if this falls into tje expensive fail category??

[svmobert]

Originally Posted by glcalahan

Okay this thread has prompted me to think of my own newly rebuilt mast head. I have installed an LED Aqua Signal tri-light next to my new Shakespeare VHF ant. My coax is larger/heavier than RG58 but can't recall size. Anyone know if this falls into tje expensive fail category??

Only way to know is test the radio per the USCG instructions..

I also think this ripping of US manufacturers vs EU manufacturers is not entirely warranted. Sure, some US manufacturers have done little EMI/RFI testing/mitigation especially concerning the marine application.

Having said that, I am more worried about the thousand of boaters who buy cheap chinese LEDs on Ebay, Amazon, Alibaba, etc because "they work just a good" as the expensive Imtra/etc bulbs. While some *may* be okay, I suspect many are not.

Our boat has 25 x 10w interior lights, all of which have fairly expensive ($20 each) LED replacements installed. If I put noisy LEDs in all of those fixtures, just think of the noise being propagated through the boat.

In any case, I think boaters were ahead of the manufacturers and the USCG in demanding, and then just straight up buying LEDs before anyone actually started testing the implications. The USCG didn't approve any navigation LEDs for a long time, then only a few. Noise issues then started to pop up as more and more boaters were buying LED lights, many of which have never been approved by the USCG. In fact, Imtra straight up says that the bulbs will work the same as the incandescent bulbs they replace as long as they are in the same housing, but that only the housing is really USCG approved.

[john61ct]

No one expects many vendors to voluntarily go beyond what the regulators - who are in theory looking out for consumers' interests - require.

The fault lies with voters falling for the "free market is enough, regulations are bad" propaganda put out by the political lackeys of the owners of the means of production.

Who get lined up first against the wall when the revolution comes.

[Midnight Son]

Thank you John.

Cheers

[ArmyDaveNY]

Originally Posted by glcalahan

I have installed an LED Aqua Signal tri-light next to my new Shakespeare VHF ant. My coax is larger/heavier than RG58 but can't recall size. Anyone know if this falls into tje expensive fail category??

I did a quick check of several brands including Aqua Signal. The one AquaSignal light I looked at was listed as CE rated. Also, It was manufactured in Taiwan, Republic of China. In theory you should be good however only a test as described in the prior posts will verify this.

One person noted that DrLED, also listed as CE rated, produced a lot of interference. They are however made in communist China, not Taiwan, and many mainland Chinese firms will just lie and say that they are rated or meet certain standards when in fact they don't. Remember, regulations and laws are only as good as the people who follow them.

It is also possible that the person who had the noisy Dr.LED light was the victim of a genuine manufacturing defect and not a nefarious sub-vendor. A friend of mine had a brand new car that had a bad battery. The dealer replaced it right away and the replacement battery was bad. It turns out there was a manufacturing problem with the entire batch. The third battery from the same manufacture but from a different batch was fine and lasted many years. Sometimes it happens.

[surazo]

I changed all my lights for leds and no problem .I left several hours turn on and if is defective fail .Around 30% of the china led fail .I don´t notice any other problem

[brownr377]

Originally Posted by Cpt Pat

It's sad that our lack of regulations in the US may encourage a "Buy European" result. But the US manufacturers are free to get CE certification.

I would be very suspicious of any brand of marine LED that didn't obtain that certification.

I kind of oversimplified the FCC views, there is a catchall in the FCC rules that despite whatever the specific regulations, electronic devices are not allowed to interfere with licensed radio services. This issue definitely falls under that rule but I don't see how the FCC can effectively enforce it on bulbs that are getting installed in all sorts of applications. It is possible to file a complaint with the FCC, probably won't go anywhere. The link is buried somewhere on FCC.gov.

I would wager you're fairly safe with any of the big name manufacturers they will generally get worldwide certs and the models aren't different from region to region. They have too much legal exposure if they get caught out cheating. The little one off guys from China and small shops, I'm pretty skeptical of, even if they are marked with the correct marks the testing is expensive and they need to hire somebody like me to keep it all straight, so I doubt they bother.

And one other thing is even if you buy certified equipment that was lab tested, you can still have issues. The lab test is a controlled environment meant to produce repeatable representative meaurements, the actual installed environment can produce different results. Shielded cable terminations need to be done properly, when the cable bag includes ferrites that are supposed to be installed... well that always makes me chuckle, they should get used, i'd guess they usually don't. When you install any electronics the radio check that the coast guard has recommended should be done.

[Cpt Pat]

Originally Posted by brownr377

I kind of oversimplified the FCC views, there is a catchall in the FCC rules that despite whatever the specific regulations, electronic devices are not allowed to interfere with licensed radio services. This issue definitely falls under that rule but I don't see how the FCC can effectively enforce it on bulbs that are getting installed in all sorts of applications. It is possible to file a complaint with the FCC, probably won't go anywhere. The link is buried somewhere on FCC.gov.

I would wager you're fairly safe with any of the big name manufacturers they will generally get worldwide certs and the models aren't different from region to region. They have too much legal exposure if they get caught out cheating. The little one off guys from China and small shops, I'm pretty skeptical of, even if they are marked with the correct marks the testing is expensive and they need to hire somebody like me to keep it all straight, so I doubt they bother.

And one other thing is even if you buy certified equipment that was lab tested, you can still have issues. The lab test is a controlled environment meant to produce repeatable representative meaurements, the actual installed environment can produce different results. Shielded cable terminations need to be done properly, when the cable bag includes ferrites that are supposed to be installed... well that always makes me chuckle, they should get used, i'd guess they usually don't. When you install any electronics the radio check that the coast guard has recommended should be done.

Agree with all of the above. In private conversations I've had offline, I was old the FCC will go to a few retailers and tell them to take the product off the shelf. Then the word gets out, and other retailers return their stocks. Consequence: no one wants to stock the product. Once that happens, no one but fly-by-night and ma'-and-pa' retailers will carry it.

This of course doesn't correct the problem with products already installed, and it could work against late-learners getting a refund from a greymarket retailer who weasels out by saying: "sorry, we no longer carry that product / it's out of warranty." If there's no actual FCC ruling, there's nothing for the consumer to point to. Caveat emptor.

When I think about the effort some skippers may have to expend to replace a light at the masthead, it makes me cringe.

[Cpt Pat]

Originally Posted by john61ct

No one expects many vendors to voluntarily go beyond what the regulators - who are in theory looking out for consumers' interests - require.

The fault lies with voters falling for the "free market is enough, regulations are bad" propaganda put out by the political lackeys of the owners of the means of production.

Who get lined up first against the wall when the revolution comes.

And if our regulations and standards become too lax: "Made in the USA" becomes a warning label.

[yttrill]

I have this problem with my masthead anchor light. Strangely, the tricolour in the same light fitting (but a different LED) does not cause a problem. Both from the same source. Just glad its not the other way around :-)

[john61ct]

Originally Posted by Cpt Pat

And if our regulations and standards become too lax: "Made in the USA" becomes a warning label.

Largely irrelevant anyway

[phorvati]

Its not where its manufactured, its where its designed. New design goes through UL/FCC or CE(europe) certification prior to manufacturing. Factories are in china and they just follow manufacturing documentation which include end of the manufacturing line test for quality. But Factories do not do EMC/EMI. That test is done by CE, UL/FCC test house in Europe or US one time on early prototype (usually refereed to as the golden unit). And Aqua Signal is a German company, good design engineering and will have CE mark or UL since they sell in the US. Meaning they did an Unintentional radiator scan, which looks at how much unintentional energy product radiates at various frequencies and if its too much for instance at VHF frequencies, they need to remedy that prior to receiving the mark.

So yes buying stuff with CE or UL mark ensures test is done, but Ive seen UL marked products by no-name companies that do not pass UL standard they are supposed to comply with. In fact i deal with them at work quite often. They are often knockoffs from of legitimate companies created by reverse engineering the quality product, then using cheaper components not rated appropriately in order to lower the price.

So in addition to looking for CE/UL mark, research the name of the company that designed the product not necessarily where its manufactured.

[john61ct]

Not to mention pure counterfeits.

Ultimately means, don't look for the cheapest version, buy from a trusted source.

[rlevin73]

Originally Posted by Cpt Pat

I'm not sure if this has been posted before, but for anyone who hasn't heard, several LED manufacturers are skimping on the radio frequency interference suppression in LED lights. This could wipe out your VHF and AIS reception (you can still transmit - but you may not be able to receive). That is happening, and the Coast Guard is now warning mariners about the problem.

See the USCG safety alert for details about LED interference with AIS & VHF: https://www.dco.uscg.mil/Portals/9/DCO%20Documents/5p/CG-5PC/INV/Alerts/1318.pdf?ver=2018-08-16-091109-630.

The USCG procedure in that alert won't work with PLL-based receivers - like Standard Horizon's because the squelch will only open with a coherent carrier - not with random noise. It's better to tune in the weakest NOAA weather station, or some other weak station, and then turn on your LEDs - one at a time. If the NOAA station vanishes or is buried in noise, you have a noisy LED. I've been in contact with the USCG people who are investigating this problem and informed them that their test procedure won't work with all comms radios. I've also reported a few tests to them.

This problem is especially bad if you have a noisy LED lamp near your antenna - like a bad tri-color at the masthead. But the RFI can radiate over the supply wires throughout the boat. Installations are so variable that defined countermeasures are impractical.

A little background: it's not the LED lamps themselves that are at fault, but rather the cause is the internal pulse duration switching power supplies - intended to allow the lamps to operate over wide voltage ranges. Those of you with a radio background will know about old spark-gap transmitters. They were outlawed because they broadcast across a wide RF spectrum. Well, these defective LEDs are doing the same thing. Since the lamps are usually encapsulated, the problem isn't field repairable. The only practical fix is for the manufacturer to reduce the slew rate of the switching supplies (which will make them slightly less efficient). More time in the switch transfer range = more power dissipated as heat.

This shouldn't besmirch all LEDs. After spending hours in a Faraday cage with a spectrum analyzer, I found that some are very quiet. I tested many lamps and found the ones with the European "CE" seal were generally the best. To get that seal, the lamps have to pass a lab test for RFI. Here in the US, it's the wild west. Caveat Emptor. The worst lamps I tested were the incandescent substitutes intended to fit in the incandescent lamp housing.

If you're sailing an untested boat, and you can't receive a station, turn off all your LED lamps. It may solve the problem (if you don't mind being in the dark with no navigation lights).

You might try RF chokes, shielded cables, parallel bypass capacitors, etc. But some of the RFI is radiating right off the lamp housing, and you may not have any success. If it radiates RFI, return it, and report the make and model to the US Coast Guard: https://www.navcen.uscg.gov/?pageName=contactUs, regardless of whether you are in the US. They will appreciate the report. They are trying to compile a list of bad lamps and makers.


73
N8QH - out

I see the complaints sent into the USCG and almost all LEDs generate interference.
We are working along with the FCC and others to introduce a standard that is currently
used for LEDs in the auto industry. We recently tested a manufacturer in Annapolis who seems to have clean LEDs. In all cases you should test for interference.

[Nicholson58]

This is old news. What is new is newbies discovering that low end cheap LEDs interfere. We have over 80 LED lights on our boat including NAV lights near antennas. Absolutely no problems. Buy only PWM lights with high frequency switching above the operational frequency of the radio AND with proper interference mitigation features. The crap LEDs from NAPA and other bottom end sources are not made for boats.