Ham Radios VS Touch Lamps

[@MarvinParnell]

Back when I was on the "Chicken Band" running a 250 watt linear, I used to turn on and cycle my sisters Touch lamp that had 3 brightness settings, "this was before LED's" My brother in law and I knew what was going on but she had no idea and we had her thinking the lamp was haunted, he came home from work one day and found the lamp in the trash outside, He decided then it was time to tell her what it was and she made me come over to show her. Lol. Ahhhh, Good Times.

[@matthew.tamasco]

We "had" a touch light in our bedroom. Took me a few few weeks to figure out how my wife knew when I was on the radio late into the night...

[@geoffh784]

I had the touch lamp problem but it was with my neighbours lamps, they weren't happy. I ended up buying them 2 switched bed lamps to replace the touch lamps.

[@alfa409]

We have two touchlamps in our bedroom and they go nuts when I am on my Icom 7300/EFHW combo. Welcome to the club!

[@MI7DJT]

Hmm.. up the power and see how far away you can turn off/on neighbour's touch lamps lol

[@VE9ASN]

Just because it's "choked" doesn't mean that it has enough common mode impedance, many chokes fall well short in performance, especially on common mode monsters like the efhw.

[@chrisazure1624]

When you say choking antennas, I envision Homer Simpson choking Bart. Do'h!

[@W7LDT]

My house too. I wonder if my neighbors have touchlamps coming on?? At my father’s qty, keying down on 40M, the doorbell rings. That was real popular with my mother.

[@Eric10179]

I love the self defence stick in the background 😎

[@JudgeKW]

I was trying to use a USB powered touch lamp for late shift POTA lighting. It would cycle through the 3 brightness settings, off, and then back on.

[@2EOGIY]

10:00 Ugly baluns are monobanders; their usable frequency range, where they pose a high impedance to common mode current, is very narrow. They might be suitable for a monobander antenna, but for end fed, those are no-go unless for a specific band.

[@pasixty6510]

The answer to the question at 4:50 lies in the way the operator uses the efhw. The impedance transformer, usually 49to1, is designed to transform high voltage. At frequencies on which the antenna wire is resonant, a high impedance occurs, meaning high voltages will be present and easily be transformed. If you operate on a frequency, the wire is not resonant on, the impedance drops rapidly and current begins to flow through the coil. The magnetic field in the ferrite and the current through the wire start to produce heat in the wire and in the core. The entire assembly heats up and fails. So it’s not a good idea to apply the tuner in front of an impedance transformer to get rid of bigger mismatches. It makes the SWR look fine first, but after a few minutes of operation the ferrite core fails to build up a proper magnetic field and SWR goes all over the place. Remember: the endfed wire must be fed at high voltage,not at high current to make it work. A halfwave dipole has high voltage at its ends and high current in the middle. Apply this knowledge to several harmonics, and you can figure out for every frequency whether there’s a high voltage or high current at your wire‘s end.

[@mikeramsey9747]

We have a China cabinet that has a touch hinge to turn on the lights. I have placed torroids on the sensor wire, power cord, chokes on the coax and nothing stops the light from going on. So like Mike I live with it

[@JohnTarbox]

As for the power rating for the balun, or other gear, it used to be expected to rate gear, particularly tubes, for CCS and ICAS. CCS is the rating for continuous commercial service such as an FM broadcast station. When operated in CCS, the item can handle that power with a 100% duty cycle for an indefinite time. 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, etc. ICAS is the rating for intermittent commercial and amateur service; think a CW transmitter operated a few hours per day with some transmission intermingled with periods of reception. Anyone familiar with stereo amplifiers knows the games manufacturers play to rate their equipment far more powerful than what can reasonably be expected. Thus reviewers tend to do their own measurements to help compare various brands under comparable conditions. Another issue with ferrite cores is that as the power increases, efficiency drops off long before the core gets hot. What is the point of operating a balun at its maximum safe power level if, at that level, the efficiency is abysmal?

[@ricksshop]

I've shut off fuel-injected VW bugs (ign systems not shielded well) and wiped out wireless intercoms in fast food drive-thrus with a 40w 10 meter mobile. Sometimes the devices don't have adequate RF shielding, not the transceivers fault.

[@betterbprepared]

I have recently started having a problem when keying up on 40m. 20m is ok, but when I key up on 40m there is one GFCI in the kitchen under the sink that starts making a buzzing noise. We have a stainless steel sink and that buzzing from the GFCI vibrates through the sink making it sound like it is arcing. Sounds kinda like a big stun gun. I can't see any other side effects other than the noise. I might try swapping out that GFCI to see if that noise goes away.

[@DellFargus]

My touch lamp goes on pretty much whenever I key up. I just deal with it, and turn it off later. I also have a homebrew sound system on my back porch that tends to resonate if I leave it plugged in and turned on when I play radio and key, however it distorts - the xyl says it sounds like demons. I don't think the lamp is turned on by something in the house wiring/grounding, it seems to be reacting to the wiggly air coming off the antenna.

[@peteknapp8940]

I had the same problem with the only touch lamp in our house for the lights in the entertainment center usually on 20m. After choking everything I could to death and turning my power down below 10w with the same result...I ended up unplugging it since we never used them anyway! I still hunt POTA at QRP everyday though....ham harder not smarter!

[@wj4k73]

My Raddy weather station blinks on and off and beeps when I’m on certain bands. If I’d known about the touch controls on the device, I would’ve avoided it.

[@whereisdaveoutdoor]

I had the same thing happen but it was my oven being turned on and off while doing ft8 on 10m. I was doing ft8 at my desk and I kept hearing the oven touch controls making a beeping sound so I went over and saw the oven was being turned on and off. At first, I thought the oven touch controls were failing then when I stopped the ft8 and turned off the radio and the oven stopped making the beeping noise. Was going to post it on forums to see if anyone has come across this. I guess this is something to watch out for especially in multi-family buildings😬.

[@xegnomelite9661]

No amount of ferite around the power cords of the lamps will do the trick. The issue is at the electronics of the lamp. It acts as a receiver for detecting the ‘touch’. I once saw a write up where someone put resistance on the leads on the bread board inside the lamp… but that is way more expensive than buying switch lamps or something else. My wife knows when I’m on 20 or 40… I just unplug them

[@CigarsOnTheAir]

Love Mailbag Monday! I come to see the mouse and banana toys, and stay for the awesome content. You da man Mike! Cheers and 73!

[@l.m.iniowa3983]

Question: what does it do to a pacemaker with defib?

[@johnk23705]

Sh*t can the Touch Light and Ham Harder !!!!!!

[@donaldsmith3048]

On the heating up toroid, /wind a new one on 240-43. They are not hard to do. I am new to HF and have made 2 of them already! Doesn't take long and they don't cost that much to make. 73 W4DES

[@4313Ap]

I'm getting into my apartment buildings for alarm system on 30 meters just tuning, so I've been avoiding it... Had an inspector come by doing some pre checks, told him I'm a ham, operating in FCC space, and their setup isn't working right "here, lemme show you" I got the yeah, here's a crackpot old guy trying to complain about clouds... I had him stand right under the alarm, key up with 5 watts and tell him that's 5 watts, I'm legal for 1500 on most bands... I need you to tell the techs that are doing the actual inspection and work to contact me about the problem... He kinda turned a bit green... And the oh crap i misjudged this look happened

[@Tom.K2TAV]

Team touch lamp? The HRCC podcast had me in stitches with the touch lamp saga. 😂

[@aginnd5331]

What model weather monitor is that in your bedroom?

[@user-fv8wf6tv4u]

Will a low pass filter work?

[@alanthomas8817]

Fit a capacitor between the base of the lamp and the touch panel, side of the light :-) not sure of the size cap.

[@jonmcadams5401]

Thanks Mike! Looks like touch lamps are sensitive RF receivers. Do you also find that touch lamps emit RF noise when plugged into AC? FYI, I have a night light designed to go on when the AC power goes off that sits on its own battery charger. That charger produces lots of RF noise if it's kept plugged into AC.

[@tamstutz921]

I have the same touch lamp problem on 40m, but it’s also shutting off the UPS system that my computer and office equipment are plugged into. Completely turns it off. Any help from anyone regarding this, please?

[@jamesgeorge1709]

My neighbor had a touch light and when I would key up with my antenna pointed in that direction it would turn on the light and they thought it was ghosts turning it on and I never told them different. At the time I was running 20 watts. hihi 73 from ki0ad/Jim😮😮😮😮

[@hamradiotube]

hahaha thats awesome!

[@christophersmith1155]

in the early 1980s my neighbors house alarm would go off when i key down at 4 watts.

[@chrisazure1624]

So that is why my neighbor's light comes on at 2:00am when I am working DX!.

[@Steve-km2uf]

And I thought I had the only magic lamp. Yup, same thing happened to me.

[@solarnewbee7868]

whats with the gun in the background

[@AD6DMDennis]

I spy a naked DenCo in the background.

[@hamradiotube]

lol yes you do

[@MikeG-js1jt]

I have the same antenna (the nelson) I can run a max of 60 watts... forever........... any higher it eventually heats up too much and then the SWR rises quickly

[@jamesgeorge1709]

ps that box looks like it has enougth space to stack two 240/43 and that would stop the issue.

[@hamradiotube]

That might be pushing it a bit. It's not that thick. You might could squeeze one in but that might be a challenge too. It's not as big as it looks.

[@charlygoehring6155]

I have a few coils of coax just before the transceiver and it knocked out my common mode interference. The left stero speaker would go loud when keying. I would have to shut off my stereo when on the air. It's gone now.

[@petermajor4599]

Yessss😂😂😂😂😂

[@bigjohn75]

I want all the POWER! ….lol

[@W9BTM-WQNX906]

question #2: Answer, Dont use that antenna. thats the hard truth of it all. any antenna that uses a transformer or toroid it will get hot and swr will climb and power will fold back. best to use a specific tuned antenna dipole if your gonna use any digital mode. best is a fan dipole. swr will never climb and radio will never fold back power and you can use one coax to the fan dipole and have as many bands on a fan dipole as you want.

[@solarnewbee7868]

expecting company. LOL

[@patriot9455]

I would bet the touch lamps are made in China, ( in the same plant where cheap chinesium radios are made)

[@jmollo55]

Thumb up #96