Haven't noticed
Haven't noticed anything from the plasma to interfere with the radio, but my microwave is plotting with the dishwasher, and i have believe the toaster is involved somehow.
The Radio Society of Great Britain is asking anyone with a plasma TV to let it know if they‘ve had trouble getting Radio 4 lately. The Radio Society of Great Britain represents the radio ham community, though it sees itself as having a wider remit. When not organising competitions to see who has the biggest beard can transmit …
Can't help you with (2) or (3) but if you want to hear broadcast science journalism that won't have you screaming obscenities at the ill-informed nitwits who substitute for experts on other media, then Radio 4 is the place to go. Leading Edge and Material World are excellent. Give 'em a try.
Radio 4 was one of the pleasures I missed most when I moved overseas. Thanks to technological developments I found that I could listen to it from time to time when no one was watching telly courtesy of Sky, then later I could listen with my notebook, courtesy of teh internets, and now I have an Android phone I can listen to podcasts of their best programmes* anywhere I can find a network, courtesy of Google Listen and BBC Browsecast (which is not affiliated with the BBC).
So count me as another listener.
*subject to rights limitations for overseas distribution. Podcasts I can subscribe to contain no drama (apart from The Archers) and severely abbreviated music.
1 who the fuck is listening to radio 4?
I used to. Since it was the only English language channel on the dial here in Malaysia. Now I listen to Eurobeat CDs since I wised up and realized that the source of my depression and suicidal tendencies was from all the Dickey Lee songs they played on the channel (good thing the Radio 4 in other countries sensibly ban Dickey Lee songs from airplay).
2 who the fuck is using a plasma?
The Indio-Muslim ("Mamak") restaurant down the street?
3 where's my banana?
It's behind the fridge.
It's good at sport, rubbish at everything else. I've really no interest in what the "Great British Public" has to say about anything. And if their phone-ins are anything to go by the country's full of knuckle-scrapers from Dagenham who blame immigration for everything.
I recall reading that one of the very early bits of seriously impressive hacking at one of the west coast USA home-brew computer clubs involved putting a computer next to a radio, and playing tunes with the interference by varying the instructions the CPU was executing.
From "Fire in the Valley", a very good read for those of a certain age.
GJC
... quite a few instances of serious interference from plasma TV sets to the HF spectrum reported within the amateur radio community.
In some of those cases the manufacturers of the TVs have ended up replacing the entire device with a different model due to their failure to modify the original device to reduce the spurious emissions below the regulatory limits. Quite how they ever came to have CE certification is not clear, but the astonishing amount of crud they radiated was.
Not sure if plasma is an expanding market sector or whether LCD and LED screens will have killed them off soon.
The CE tag is _self issued_, meanig that you as a manufacturer had done all the ccontrols and measurements to assure it.
If you've not done it, you're obliously lying, and emmiting a false certificate, so you can be prosecuted.
Here in Catalunya (Spain), the ploice checks from time to time the documentation of the wares sold, and there is a very simple mechanism for the user to complain. Once there is a complaint a full review and/or test must be made. If the manufacturar/importer is found guilty, all the affected wares are retired from the market and a fine imposed.
Has been done with toys, electronic devices, foods, etc.
2 cents on CE procedures.
I didn't know that about Spain. I am in the very unfortunate position of still not knowing much about the way things here work. In the UK, you would have to complain to your local trading standards people. They may decide to do something or not, but even if they do, you don't tend to get anything done in general (you may just get a refund on your own unit).
It should be easy to implement this; it should be simple to ask any company placing things on the market to provide the proof that they have for their CE compliance. My previous employer had full test reports for everything placed on the market, for example (although they needed them for the additional BEAB and UL approvals).
They're actually asking for evidence and indirectly ignoring the negative results?? This is like going out and asking for examples of X & Y coinciding and concluding that X causes Y, without looking for examples of (X & ¬Y), or (¬X & Y). Say hello to confirmation bias.
Question though - how does a 10 or 30 MHz "hum" interfere with radio transmitting at ~95MHz?
What, you mean those TVs that comply with the EMC regulations? We'd be happy with more of that sort of result.
The point is that a number of plasma TV models have been shown to be effectively unscreened and the manufacturers have not been able to cure them when complaints have been made. Can't see how they pass their CE testing.
If a plasma TV is radiating above the stated EMC limits, it's a potential problem even if it isn't interfering with Radio 4. I somehow think that Bill is using Radio 4 as a tongue in cheek reference, the actual problem can be interference anywhere up to 100MHz or so, so might affect R4 but is more likely to affect other users of that spectrum.
It's a basic scientific rule that you can't prove a negative, so "ignoring the negative results" is a somewhat pointless comment. They need to look at *all* the results, and decide if the positive ones make a statistically significant problem. To do that they're looking for cases of interference, which can be correlated with the numbers of plasma TVs in use. A million TVs sold and 10 complaints, probably no issue. 1000 complaints, there's possibly a problem.
As to the interference itself, the power supplies alone in most modern equipment run at 48-96 kHz, generating large amounts of hash that has to be filtered. Plasma TVs with their '100Hz' frame refresh rates and 1080-line displays are going to generate many more harmonics, since they're essentially boxed spark transmitters! Unlikely to interfere with R4 at 95MHz, but mainly because that is FM which is significantly less senstive to amplitude-based interference than AM. A poorly-designed plasma TV has significant capacity to wipe out amplitude-modulated signals below 30MHz, where nmost such signals live (commercial and professional, as well as amateur).including R4 long wave, of course.
...for clearing up the harmonics issue (incidentally, my 95MHz comment was regarding the approximate broadcast of R4)
However, ignoring the negatives is absolutely still a fail. If they get 80 complaints (which they have so far), all they know is that this is 80 examples from people who are capable of realising. This isn't a comparible statistic against "all plasmas" - this is against "all people who have a plasma and are capable of realising interference". They have no idea what they're baselining their data against, and that is where they fail. For all they know, there are only 80 people out there looking for it and they've all found it, or there could be 8000 people out there and only 80 have found it.
Plasma's will become increasingly irrelevant as LCD and OLED technologies mature, especially with the LED backlights that are becoming available.
I predict that Plasma TV's will be banned because they are too energy inefficient once all filament lightbulbs have been eliminated. Especially if the manufacturers can lobby governments. Soon we will have TV's being replaced every year to meet government carbon emissions targets.
Joke. (I hope)
The plasma TV my next door neighbors have definitely interfere with my radio 'kit''
Kit being a Kenwood TX480 30khz to 60mhz transceiver.
Most of the interference is on the 'medium wave' bands from 1.6mhz on up through
14mhz. AM broadcast band here in the USA is just around 680khz to around 1.7mhz
and when they fire up the noise maker in the evenings the weaker AM stations can be
decimated.
Me, I use a LCD 48inch set. Prior to learning about the inherent noise factor
involved with plasma sets I was a fan of that tech for the inherent better contrast.
But, being a radio amateur operator and all means I have an awareness of RFI generating
monster tech. The general public grubs wont' be aware of such issues or even care if they did.
Bitter?
What type of radio ham are you? (apart from bearded of course!) Are you a buy it all in brown boxes and can connect it up type, or are you a I can build my own kit if I wanted to type?
I ask because you could always make something to interfere with their TV instead (hyperthetically speaking of course). I certainly wouldn't recommend manufacturing anything from an old microwave oven magnatron to permanently silence the plasma TV either...
Anon because although I haven't incited any crime, nor given details of how to do it, I still don't trust the men with guns.
> If given the chance, how many people would take Radio 4 over their Plasma?
Well, me for a start, since I don't have any of this new-fangled plasma stuff. My 20-y-o Sony CRT still works very well, thank you, for the <1 programme a day worth watching..
Does the fuss that RSGB are now making about supposed interference from plasma TVs mean that they have given up on the supposed interference from HomePlugs?
....about the interference from plasma TVs or PLT devices.
And no, the RSGB have not given up on anything, but in the light of PA Consulting's report to Ofcom that says "yes, these PLT devices will become a big problem in the near future so something needs to be done to sort out the potential for trouble" I think they're biding their time for now to find out what Ofcom are planning to do themselves.
Why Ofcom won't enforce the EMC regulations (2006) I don't know, lake of spine I suspect.
I know it is the silly season, but how does that twaddle even pretend to be news?
The only things harming domestic radio are foreign continuity announcers (Radio 4) and the need for subtitles in English (Radio 5). Even China Radio has better quality English speakers in its relays from Radio Luxembourg...... once the home of Dan Dare and the Top Twenty........ blimey, is nothing sacred?
In Jan 2004 my neighbour got a new toy- a Panasonic Plasma TV.
All radio from radio 4 198 khz to shortwave 30 Mhz was blotted out, not FM radio 4 (95 Mhz) as some have incorrectly concluded.Tests proved it could be heard 400m away!
To cut a very long story short 11 months later Pansonic engineer arrived from their UK HQ with a replacement screen which completely cured the problem.
Panasonic took measurements before and after so they including their Japanese HQ know of the
problem and how to cure it.
I have since found out that some Toshiba sets which used the same screen gave similar problems.
My cooperative neighbour was rewarded with a considerably brighter picture !
Panasonic engineer admitted that he had dealt with several other cases.
Please note that I have no objection to the majority of Plasmas including most Panasonics which do
not cause inteference,everyone has a right to interference free reception whatever someone elses view of Radio 4 or any other station may happen to be.
Have been hearing some Plasmas are OK for about 2 years then something deteriorates so interference starts to be a problem.
Didnt involve Ofcom as they are less use than a chocolate fireguard.
I tried searching and kept getting the same canned statement about "We only need to know the number of interference cases, no details, and no names/addresses." (which surely statistically means bugger all as there's not much way to tell if these cases are even genuine).
There is a reason to ask this - Radio4 is on LW. My mother listens to it and pretty much *everything* from my CRT to the local farmer's milking machine > 1/2 mile away interferes with it. Then there's FM R4 which is supposed to be more resiliant as FM was devised to get around all the problems with AM.
I would try to listen to my BBC local station on VM but whenever I try and "tune in" (press 938) I have a recorded message that says "due to licensing conditions this programme is unavailable/deleted/nuked; whatever".
I have no DAB - not that that would be any better - and I guess I should now try searching for something called a radio receiver (built one in early 70's with a piece of galena and a fucking long bit of wire).
Oh, those days in the 60's/70's hidden under the blankets with a non-rechargeable battery torch and a copy of "The Famous Five Go Diving" (hmmmmm, I wonder..........)
Then you've never measured the RF splatter from a compact flourescent bulb.
Right up past 400MHz (lightswitch remote controls, garage door operners, etc)
Why can't the beardies chase something which is a _real_ nuisance?
(Disclosure - I used to be a "ham" and in a previous professional life operated stacks of 20kW PEP shortwave transmitters which were already museum pieces back then)