Montana Owners Club - Keystone Montana 5th Wheel Forum - View Single Post

Turtle-Ham · 04-03-2019, 06:18 PM

Hi,

My XYL and I have been full time RVers in a 3721RL for a bit over two years. We bought the rig new, and have had a few hiccups but nothing insurmountable; for the most part, we're satisfied with how things have shaped up.

My main beef as a ham is that the converter generates a significant amount of RF noise in the HF range. 40 and 80 are two of my favorite bands, but the noise floor when I'm running on shore power - and therefore through the converter - is often S9; along with the elevated noise floor, there also tends to be major spurs also generated by the converter at certain freqs. In general, I can work around the spurs, but the wide band noise can't be avoided.

I've determined that the noise is from the converter by shutting off everything in the trailer other than pulling the converter's main breaker itself. The only time the high noise level is not there is if I disconnect the RV from shore power entirely and run my HF rig from an independent generator (a Honda e2000i, in my case); it's nice and quiet in that case. I wouldn't mind running my RV off the generator even considering the extra gas expense, but shutting off the shore power kills the satellite TV which takes 45 minutes or so to restart once it sees power again.

How can I filter the noise from my rig? I run both an FT-857D and FT-817ND with no difference.

FWIW, the converter is made by Progressive Dynamics, Inc, model PD4575K18L. While the RV was still under warranty (since expired), I argued with Keystone that the converter was causing this kind of noise in hopes they'd cover an alteration under the warranty, but that went nowhere as they said the unit complied with FCC specs. (Hey, I had to give it shot!)

Any suggestions?

Tks/73,

Jim, ND9M

04-03-2019, 06:18 PM	#1
Turtle-Ham Established Member Join Date: Jun 2017 Location: Box Elder Posts: 13 M.O.C. #19992	Converter RFI Hi, My XYL and I have been full time RVers in a 3721RL for a bit over two years. We bought the rig new, and have had a few hiccups but nothing insurmountable; for the most part, we're satisfied with how things have shaped up. My main beef as a ham is that the converter generates a significant amount of RF noise in the HF range. 40 and 80 are two of my favorite bands, but the noise floor when I'm running on shore power - and therefore through the converter - is often S9; along with the elevated noise floor, there also tends to be major spurs also generated by the converter at certain freqs. In general, I can work around the spurs, but the wide band noise can't be avoided. I've determined that the noise is from the converter by shutting off everything in the trailer other than pulling the converter's main breaker itself. The only time the high noise level is not there is if I disconnect the RV from shore power entirely and run my HF rig from an independent generator (a Honda e2000i, in my case); it's nice and quiet in that case. I wouldn't mind running my RV off the generator even considering the extra gas expense, but shutting off the shore power kills the satellite TV which takes 45 minutes or so to restart once it sees power again. How can I filter the noise from my rig? I run both an FT-857D and FT-817ND with no difference. FWIW, the converter is made by Progressive Dynamics, Inc, model PD4575K18L. While the RV was still under warranty (since expired), I argued with Keystone that the converter was causing this kind of noise in hopes they'd cover an alteration under the warranty, but that went nowhere as they said the unit complied with FCC specs. (Hey, I had to give it shot!) Any suggestions? Tks/73, Jim, ND9M