LEDs- warning from USCG

[MitchM]

Marine Safety Alert on August 15, 2018.

“The U.S. Coast Guard has received reports from crews, ship owners, inspectors and other mariners regarding poor reception on VHF frequencies used for radiotelephone, digital selective calling (DSC) and automatic identification systems (AIS) when in the vicinity of light emitting diode (LED) lighting on-board ships (e.g., navigation lights, searchlights and floodlights, interior and exterior lights, adornment).

 

[MitchM]

LED owners: this may be worth your following up. we owners of primitive old fashioned 12 v lights apparently need not worry.

 

[EV21]

Interesting observation. Watching to see if our friend Maine Sail has any thoughts to share on this. Not much in the way of specifics. Wondering if it might be attributable to LED drivers. Wondering also if USCG is doing any testing?

 

[bawlmer]

This is old news. The land mobile radio and cellular communities have been dealing with this for years. I tested the LED cabin lights with my handheld back in 2013 and there was definitely interference. I did not have test equipment but it was easily 3dB or worse (cuts sensitivity in half). The big problem is an LED anchor light staring into your mast top VHF antenna. There is a cheap and dirty test you can do to determine if you are getting interference. Find a very far away weather signal that is barely above the noise. Turn on your LED anchor light and see if the signal disappears below the noise. The problem is the power supplies in the LED lamps generate noise. My LED cabin lights do not interfere with my mounted radio as the mast top antenna is far away from the source. There are newer models whose power supplies have improved to significantly reduce interference. My cheap old "LED Shop" LEDs throw off a tremendous amount of noise. The issue is well known to the LED manufacturers and I am sure there are some that make far less noise than others. You may have to replace older LEDs with new ones if you have a noise problem. I do think the LED industry is through the learning curve on this issue. I am sure many cheap off shore LED manufacturers did not address this issue to keep their costs down but many also have tackled this problem and make LEDs with power supplies that have little or no emissions. The manufacturer should be able to tell you which one they are.