I moved into this new house and the kitchen was so dark because there was not enough lights installed. I hired an electrician to install three ceiling lights and under counter lights. After he left I was unable to tune my radio at all to any a m stations. Even my car's radio filled with static when it was in the garage. I notified the electrician who charged me $72.50 to come back to the house but he told me that it had nothig to do with his work. Several days later I unplugged the under counter lights and found that the radio was now just fine.Can anyone tell me what the problem is ? The undercounter lights can't be used if I want to have the radio on. the electrician will not admit that it has anything to do with his work. Thank you.

First, understand that this is coming from someone who thinks electricity is witchcraft, but it may not be the electrician's fault. Let me guess, the undercounter lights are fluorescent, right? So there's probably a ballast or a transformer, that is broadcasting a signal in the radio frequency range.

The limit of my knowledge has jus been reached, but I know there are filters that are made to suppress "noise" such as you describe. Whether any will exactly cure your problem, I don't know. Try contacting the manufacturer of the light fixtures and see what they have to say.

My guess is, there's a cure, but exactly what it is is outside my area of expertise...by far...lol. Good luck.

quote:

Originally posted by tom eagle:
I moved into this new house and the kitchen was so dark because there was not enough lights installed. I hired an electrician to install three ceiling lights and under counter lights. After he left I was unable to tune my radio at all to any a m stations. Even my car's radio filled with static when it was in the garage. I notified the electrician who charged me $72.50 to come back to the house but he told me that it had nothig to do with his work. Several days later I unplugged the under counter lights and found that the radio was now just fine.Can anyone tell me what the problem is ? The undercounter lights can't be used if I want to have the radio on. the electrician will not admit that it has anything to do with his work. Thank you.

I am an electrician and have the same problem with my under cabinet lights. They are the small multi unit halogen type. As soon as they are turned on the am radio goes nuts with static. The old halogen floor lamps did the same thing. They of course are now at the dump. Maybe there is an electical engineer out there somewhere who could suggest a line filter to eliminate the static at the source. I would by one in a heartbeat.

If an electrician responds to this question, maybe he can also answer why it appears that my low voltage halogen lights (or the transformer) is affecting and distorting the color on my TV. I have had three separate TV's on an adjacent shelf and it has the same affect on all three. I thought that it was the magnets on an adjacent sterio, so I moved it and the problem remains. This is why I now suspect the lights

Your electrician is right, the problem does not have anything to do with his installation so don't expect him to do anything about it. You might try replacing the lights with regular incandescent light fixtures. If you are able to simply plug your lights in, then I can't see why you need and electrician to do this, you should be able to handle it yourself, and then treat yourself to something you enjoy since you just saved $80.00 minimum.

Yep! You got it right about the new floresent light fixture. I removed all the older(boat anchers) fixture from my Ham Radio shack and installed all new (high tech?) fixture. Now when I am on the Ham Radio on ANY HF AM band the radio noise us unbelievable so I have to turn ALL my floresents off and use LED or flash lights to opperate! So much for HIGH TECH!!

Terry in Hayward, CA

What you're describing is known as EMI (electro-magnetic interference. It must be pretty strong to interfere with your car. Have you tried plugging your radio to an outlet that is located on a different circuit than the lights?
Usually this helps, however AM signals are generally weaker than FM signals so I don't know if this would solve your problem. Good Luck

Thank you all for your suggestions. Yes, the undercounter lights are halogen lights. I have now unplugged them so I can hear my radio. It's too bad that I wasted the money on them because I can seldom use them . I do love to listen to the a..m. radio. They are too small to change to other types of lights I believe but I am going to try. I still believe that something is wrong to make the static on the radios.

Just an idle thought. Are your ballasts magnetic or electronic? A friend once told me that a similar problem he was having with mag. ballasts went away when he installed new electronic ballasts. These also work better in colder weather.

Thanks Lauren. My problem though is that I don't know what ballasts are, or magnetic ballasts. I have never heard that word used regarding electricity. I do know what a ship's ballasts are though.

I'm an electrical engineer and unfortunately have 4 of these undercounter fixtures in my own kitchen. They ruin radio reception more than 75 feet away. I recently had to open one to repair an intermittent connection in the factory wiring. The "ballast" is a circuit inside the fixture that reduces the 120 volt AC line voltage to 12 volts for the lamp bulbs and also provides a 2-step dimmer feature. It also does a great job as a broadband radio jamming transmitter! The ballast is in a shielded box but the wires coming out of the box radiate the interference signals. I would like to think that that filtering the AC line might attenuate this interference but it seems to radiate directly from the fixture so filters probably would not help or be cost effective. Can't understand why the FCC doesn't have the equivalent of Part 15 regulations (or enforce regulations) that would require the manufacturers of this junk to build them without radiating EMI interference.