If the Russians still have any spies left in the UK with SW transmitters under the bed we could be causing them serious problems.

Ah so that's it, Winston is a Russian spy and Panasonic TVs can't receive Russian TV, that explains his hatred of Panasonic as well.

It is used for communicating with planes out of range of VHF (mid Atlantic). Obviously the plane won't be affected. The receiver here will be.

There are many other uses of course.

I've never said I hated Panasonic. I said their sets are hobbled to only work in one country so do not recommend them. I'm sure they make sets that can receive Russian TV but they are probably also hobbled.
No other manufacturer deliberately hobbles sets in this way in defiance of the spirit of EU harmonisation.

The large shortwave aerial masts used for aeronautical communications are on sites well away from housing and are unaffected by PLAs. There are no reported incidents from NATS of such problems. I suggest you do a little research before posting any other silly conspiracy theories.

You are right, a mains cable will act as a transmission line and, because it is unshielded, will radiate to some extent.

However...

Whilst I left the best part of 30 years ago now, when I was in the RAF I worked on ground radio and ground radar and whilst my memory isn't what it was, as you say, you can't change the laws of physics.

I've dug out a couple of PLAs I have used and they have the following information on them:

Input: ~110 - 240V 50-60 Hz 60mA

As I'm sure you know, Power = Volts x Amps.

So... 230 x 0.006 = 1.38W.

Now, there will be some power consumption by the unit itself, to power the electronics, the status LEDs, some lost as heat, so let's be very generous and say the power for the transmission of the signal is 1W, in reality it is likely to be less but it keeps the maths simpler.

Let's say our mains cable is 60% efficient, so 600mW of the power is transmitted along the cable, meaning 400mW is radiated. That radiated power will radiate 360° as it is an unshielded cable, so the amount of power in a 1° arc would be

400mW/360° = 1.1mW

But we haven't thought about the location yet. As I'm sure you know the range of a radiated signal decays in free space. The higher the power the longer the range but conversely the higher the frequency the shorter the range. I used to know the maths but it has been 30 years!

The construction of my house is pretty much the standard over the last 30 years. Plaster board, inner wall, air gap, outer wall. My mains cable being located between the plaster board and inner wall. So in one direction facing in to the house there is either a plasterboard or free space where the cable is under the floorboards and in the other either direction 12" of brick and air. As I live in a detached house, by the time the radiated signal gets in to the outside world it will be at the micro-watt level with a good 10 feet to go before it even hits by neighbours outside wall!

Now, that isn't to say there are some poorly manufactured devices that, under a particular set of circumstances, could cause problems but for the vast majority they will never cause any problem.

Your "demand" for these devices to be banned simply doesn't add up.

And how many Air Traffic Control radio sites do you think are located in the middle of housing estates where this would be a problem?

From my days in the RAF such sites are located away from built up areas to minimise interference, not only from domestic appliances but also from the radio transmitters themselves for those living nearby.

I doubt in the intervening years since I left the RAF that has changed.

Couple of excellent posts right there!

Yes and both accurate, (I used to be a telecommunications technical officer at what is now the CAA signals training school, very many years ago when god was a boy).

Sadly you are all wasting your time with Winston for reasons that It would be better not to speculate on.

I have spotted an error, 60mA is 0.06 Amps and not 0.006 Amps

So the power should be 13.8 Watts and not 1.1 Watts, and the other maths should be multiplied by 10 accordingly, but even so the amount leaking through walls and in to the outside world is still very, very low however and would dissipate quickly in to free space.

I can imagine.

Winston has gone quiet since some people posted actual maths/physics to him.

There's plenty of p-n junctions in HiFi etc that can demodulate RF and produce buzzing. You'd think a ham radio fan would know about rectification.

There's a ham dude on my close. A few years ago it was him getting all the complaints due to his broadcasts breaking into regular domestic electronics - using the principle in para #1. He told his neighbours that they should invest in ferrite chokes. The matter was eventually resolved, somehow. I rang him last week and said 'tune your TV to C5 - nightmare neighbours from hell is about radio hams'. LOL, as they say.

https://www.theguardian.com/technolo...de-of-my-house

Saw this and thought of Winston...

The mesh network mentioned in the article - isn't that how Sonos works?

Another error is that Power equals volts times amps times power factor.

Taking the error into account means up to 4 watts is radiated. No wonder there is so much interference. PLT has been shown to cause interference up to 500 metres. 4 watts into a decent aerial can go much further. Some TV relay transmitters are less than 4 watts.

No doubt written by a hack who knows nothing about RF.

Watts are volts times amps, VA is volts times amps times power factor. I assume you have no formal training otherwise you would have done a well known college lab experiment where a load is connected to an AC supply via an ammeter, volt meter and watt meter. Resistors, capacitors and inductors are added showing that adding the capacitors increases the current, and therefore the VA, but the reading on the wattmeter doesn't change. Capacitors draw a watt-less phase shifted current hence their use in power factor correction in factories where in the old days, and probably now, they were charged using KVA not KW metering. Adding capacitors to an inductive load reduces the current and therefore the VA but leaves the power unchanged. In the old days this was done manually with an operator switching in capacitors whilst watching a phase meter.

Sorry Winston, I must confess to a mistake there,( it's nearly 50 years since I was at college,) which I didn't notice until it was too late to correct it. Power in watts is indeed volts times amps times power factor. Having a power factor other than unity increases the current but not the power. Either way the power goes effectively in to a sort of balanced feeder, the mains cable, not a single wire radiator, so the power that Glawster2002 quotes is not radiated, only a fraction of it.

Thanks, I was about tell you you got it wrong. I've had plenty of formal training by the way.

Mains cable is very poorly balanced. For one thing one side, the neutral, is earthed either locally or at the sub station. Then there is that earth wire in the middle to unbalance things. Not to mention switch drops where the line runs separately. It is not matched or terminated either and all those branches are going to have horrendous effects at RF.

So where are all these people who can't watch TV until they unplug their homeplugs or having the local amateur radioist banging on their door because their homeplugs are preventing him from chatting to his mate in Alice Springs?

I frequent a few AV websites and have never come across anyone who's had a problem caused by them.

What in?, dancing or singing

You've proved over and over again with your ridiculous claims about homeplugs that you know nothing about Electronics or RF.

The maths errors here are meaningless, because it has nothing to do with the claims of 'interference' - the facts speak for themselves, with only incredibly tiny percentages of homeplugs causing any problems, and even then only to Hams and SWL's. As the numbers are so small, I suspect that even those cases 'might' be down to faulty units, particularly high-ESR capacitors in switch-modes PSU's.

Have you read the various threads?

No one has claimed that homeplugs stop people watching TV. TV uses UHF, 472MHz upwards, homeplugs interference is below that.

However there are plenty of cases where radio hobbyists have banged on on doors due to homeplug interference, but I doubt they were talking to anyone in Alice Springs.

Here is an example of PLT interference from the sky q box:

http://helpforum.sky.com/t5/Sky-Q/Sk...t/td-p/2495775

And a BBC White Paper on the subject:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/publications/whitepaper195

I have AMIEE in electronics, and passed the radio comm part with distinction. Probably better qualified than you.

ALL homeplugs cause interference when used as intended, the laws of physics cannot be changed.

The facts are that there are only a small number of complaints, that does not mean the interference is not there, it means people don't realise that it is interference or don't know where to complain to.

Very interesting. Thought I might try the same thing myself but for once my friend Google is stumped.

The best he can come up with for AMIEE is that the Institution of Engineers India offers AMIE and the UK's IEEE which says "Associate member grade is designed for technical and non-technical individuals who do not meet the qualifications for member grade but who wish to*benefit from membership and partnership in IEEE, and for those who are progressing, through continuing education and work experience, toward qualifications for member grade".

Can you assist with a bit more information?