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Off topic RF question


Bartek

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So ....for the past three weeks I've been soldering like a madman.

About three feet away from my workbench I have an alarm clock radio. What can I say I like to listen to NPR as I sniff the fumes. Today for the firs time I noticed an odd thing. I was working on the 1/8" return for my HD cable run and any time I touched the sleeve arm of the connector with the tip of the soldering iron the radio would take and RF hit. A pretty bad one! I tried this a few times and sure enough, thats what it was. I disconnected the soldering base station and the anomaly went away. ??????? what's going on, Induction??

Anyway, I know that this has little to do with the purpose of this group, but since there are a few of you out there with solid RF understanding / ham radio maniacs, I'd thought to ask.

Bartek

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ham radio maniacs

I guess that would be me. Hi Bartek I will keep my answer simple and to the point. Your soldering station has a u ground plug on it,,, correct,,,the tip of the soldering iron is wired directly to that u ground for safety if you were to be working around a live circuit "lets say 120V" . Your clock radio is using part of the electrical wiring in your house as the antenna for FM. Therefore when you touch the tip of the iron to a piece of metal you are also connecting to the antenna of the radio. This will only happen on FM as the radio has a built in ferrite core antenna for AM. There is nothing wrong with listening to NPR.

VE7KJR (PHIL)

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