ARB Refrigerator causing RFI on handhelds

[Fuzzyz]

ARB fridges do cause quite a bit of RFI. Mine does it also. But having endless cold food and drinks out ways the short while that it is putting of RFI that is picked up by my mobile yeasu radio.

 

[Axelwik]

You should contact ARB. Their device (the fridge) is a Part 15 device, and should not interfere with the radios. If it does, they're out of compliance and should have to fix or replace it.

 

[DaveInDenver]

You should contact ARB. Their device (the fridge) is a Part 15 device, and should not interfere with the radios. If it does, they're out of compliance and should have to fix or replace it.

Part 15 isn't a blanket fix-all. For one it only covers frequency ranges that protect commercial broadcast AM, FM and TV as well as public service bands.

Also Part 15 doesn't require everything to be compliant, only digital devices. So things with clocks, microprocessors and switching. The power supply in a fridge would be covered, which is what you're suggesting, right? Just having a motor and producing EMI/RFI wouldn't necessarily require specific Part 15 compliance. So the DC supply (or inverter) in the fridge may be compliant but the motor isn't. The motor is an incidental radiator and requires "good engineering practice" to mitigate.

And the levels are high comparatively. The radiated field strength between 88 and 215 MHz for unintentional Class-B (e.g. residential appliances) radiators is 150 μV/m at 3 meters. On VHF an S-meter should indicate S9 at 5μV (-93 dBm) @ 50Ω. So the Part 15 limit for VHF is something like S9+30dB at 3 meters. The OP's fridge is probably compliant even if it's really annoying.