Rotating beacons & RFI

Hi, was wondering if anyone any experience of:

I have a problem with a rotating amber beacon I bought last year. When using site radio hand sets, the beacon interferes with the radio signal.
I recently bought a 1mf suppressor and have wired it across the terminals of the beacon.
I then connected it to a battery, nothing went bang and the beacon worked fine.
Before I plug it in to the lighter socket on my landy, does anyone have any sane comments as I'm due back on site in a couple of days.

a) Is it likely cause any damage to the landy electrics

b) Is it likely to solve the radio interference

c) Does anyone know of any alternate methods of solving the problem

Thanks DP

It's very common and quite a few lads in the response group have had the same problem. Main cause is the motor is unshielded. and causes RF when it's spinning. the cure seems to be to dump the beacon and fit LED strobes.

I agree with redhand led strobes are a lot better i.e will cause no interference with the added advantage of a low power draw

Somewhere in there there will be a commutator feeding power to the bulb. I suspect it's this contact sparking that's causing the interference. A suppressor will damp down the RF spikes but LED strobes are the way to go.

oxides said:

Somewhere in there there will be a commutator feeding power to the bulb. I suspect it's this contact sparking that's causing the interference. A suppressor will damp down the RF spikes but LED strobes are the way to go.

Click to expand...

On most rotary beacons the bulb is permanently on and a reflector rotates round the bulb and it tends to be the motor that drives the shield that causes the problems.

Thanks for your comments everyone, looks like I'm going to be running around trying to find an LED beacon today!!

Just a quick update: As I didn't have time to buy new LED units before the event, I went with original plot of wiring a suppressor across the beacon terminals when I got on site. This actually worked quite well, not totally clean, but after several radio checks around the site it was quite acceptable.
DP

unplug the beacon whilst broadcasting

Everything about commutators and LED beacons is right, but if it's not bad with the suppressor fitted you could also experiment with where you mount it to minimise interference even further.

Thanks Sparky, I think I'll have to make up an extension lead cos its a magnetic base type and the coily lead doesnt go that far but good point, proximity could make a difference. I will try it next time I use it with radio.