Ok guys I recently had a pretty close call that could have easily been avoided if I was more informed, so my goal here is hopefully that a mod help me get this post stickied so more people can view it and prevent the problem that I had to face recently.
Let me start off by telling you the situation and a little about my setup. I have 2 different digital ballasts running 600 watts each. You can switch them from mh to hps by changing bulbs. I bought both ballasts on eBay for under $200 each from different sellers, and they are both different brands. THESE BALLASTS ARE WHAT CAUSED MY PROBLEM. This isn't due to the fact that I didn't do research, the information just wasn't available because it is a little known problem that isn't talked about much on these forums.
So here is what happened:
One day I'm surfing the internet and my internet connection goes out. I look outside and there is a truck belonging to my cable internet provider working on a power line, so I wasn't really alarmed. . . . . . .UNTIL I GOT THE KNOCK ON MY DOOR!
The cable technician told me that there was a major disturbance in their cable line coming from my house that was affecting the service of my neighbors and was eating bandwidth and causing signal to get lost in my house. He brought me to his truck and showed me a graph on his computer. He told me that "There is something major going on in your house," and asked me if I had messed with any cables recently or done anything major in the last few days. I just told him the first thing that came to my mind which was that I had an electrician in my house recently and he might have messed something up. When he went back to his truck I had my wife run downstairs to my grow room and turn off the lights, rip up my plants, take down the lights, and throw everything in rubbermade totes. My room is a sealed room built into my basement that is hard to see the door unless you are looking for it. Anyhow, by the time the technician came back from his truck he asked if he could come in and trace my cable wire to make sure that a loose cable wire wasn't causing the problem. I let him in and he came in my basement (right after I smoked a bowl down there, mind you. I also had my wife spray some lysol disinfectant down there to mask the scent). He did find that there were some cable splitters and old wires from where I used to have cable tv but now I only need one wire for my cable modem since I am using Satelite for my tv now. He fixed the cable so that only 1 line was running in my house with no splitters. He then went back to his computer in his truck and said "Well, I don't know if it was something you did or something I did but the problem is fixed." He left shortly after that and for the rest of the night no amount of weed or beer could calm me down from how nervous I was. The man was a foot or two from my grow room door. The good news is I was only one week into this grow and I didn't lose much except I did pay $100 for 10 seeds and I was growing 8 at the time. All it takes is one loudmouth technician see something illegal in your house and you could be toast, so I consider myself lucky that I was actually home at the time of day he showed up and that I handled the situation swiftly and decisively. Just think about it, this guy gets paid to drive around and look for strange radio frequencies. Couldn't a cop use the same technology to bust you with if you aren't careful?
What I've learned since this close call:
While this was happenening and after it was over with I did a search online of "grow light cable interference." If you do this you will see MANY forum posts and websites showing people who have had this problem. What was actually happening is the digital ballasts I had were sending out MASSIVE AMOUNTS of radio waves which interfere with RF, or radio frequency. I also found out that some ballasts do come with RF shields. I do not know if these shields remove 100% of the radio interference or not, all I know is my ballasts must not have had RF shields installed. I also learned that cables and electronics in your house, and even sometimes in your neighbor's houses can be affected by the emissions of digital ballasts. It can even cause service interruption or bad service to your tv or your neighbor's tv while the lights are running. A post I read in a different forum was saying that he thought it was funny that the neighbor was complaining to him about the crappy tv reception between 8am and 8pm, which was the exact time when he was running his lights.
It's a good thing there is a way we can test our ballasts:
Finally, I want to share with everyone the test I found on the internet that can be used to confirm if you are getting RF interference in your grow room. If you know an electrician he may have access to some kind of RF meter that tests frequencies, but don't worry you don't need that. All you need is a radio with the capability to be set to A.M. I call this the A.M. radio test.
You can use F.M. radio for the test as well, but A.M. is affected much more noticeably and therefore is better for the test. All you have to do is bring your radio to your grow room and plug it in. Then set it to A.M. and find the clearest station possible. Once this is done, turn on or plug in your digital ballast. If your ballast is one of the bad ones then the radio station will immediately get very fuzzy. The brighter your light gets as it powers up the more it will make the station turn into static. You can do the same test by turning on the radio next to your closest active cable line and then turning on the ballast, then you can see if the RF interference can reach your cable wires and alert the company that there is a problem. If your radio stays clear then you have nothing to worry about and be glad that you bought a quality product.
In conclusion:
I have since sold my digital lights on eBay and gone with 100% cfl grow lights. I would prefer to use my digital lights but why risk it when you can get similar results and use way less power with cfls. If you or anyone you know uses digital ballasts, please tell them about this problem and have them do the A.M. radio test. What happened to me could happen to anyone, except this time you wouldn't be home, or you would be out of air freshener, or the technician could see your room and report you. I know this post is pretty long but I thank you for reading it and I welcome comments from people who know more about this problem or want to know about it. Hopefully I have helped someone here. Take Care, -ATL
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