Re: Topband: Wind Farming

[David Aslin G3WGN]

I live in one of the areas of G-land with the highest concentration of wind 
farms.
What I learned while looking for a new low-noise QTH:
- small wind generators (50kW or less) have induction generators and therefore 
are essentially no-noise on HF & VHF.
- mid-size (up to around 1MW) usually have an inverter (think SMPS on a 20-50m 
(70-170ft) tower) which is a noise generator.
- large turbines most always use an inverter architecture and some of the 
towers are 80m/300ft or more high.  Gives them the ability to spread their hash 
over very wide areas and be prominent in the field of view of your antennas.
- I drove around several of the larger windfarms at distances from 3 miles down 
to 500ft or so.  One particularly noisy site (with IIRC 19 x 2MW turbines) 
could be heard out to 3 miles or so.  RX was KX3 with a 9ft whip on the roof of 
the SUV.  No doubt would be heard at a much greater distance at a fixed QTH 
with towers/beams.
- I set a goal of being no closer than 5 miles from a turbine of 1MW or more.  
Hard to achieve on this crowded small island (it's a 1000 miles long but has a 
population of 60 million+).
- The ZL6QH experience appears to validate my experimental findings.

So if that farm really is local and they want to install big wind generators, 
be ready for QRN.
73, David G3WGN  M6O

-Original Message-
From: Jim Murray [mailto:adkmur...@yahoo.com] 
Sent: 30 March 2016 20:07
To: TopBand List 
Subject: Topband: Wind Farming

Hello all,There is talk of local farmers bringing in windmill companies.  With 
the low prices now on milk it is one way to boost income.  Wondering if anyone 
has experienced any interference/noise from the generators.ThanksJimk2hn
_
Topband Reflector Archives - http://www.contesting.com/_topband

Re: Topband: Wind Farming

[Jim Brown]

Brian,

The last paragraph is particularly interesting. Variable speed drive 
motor controllers are well known noise generators, primarily because 
they are generally very poorly installed in a manner that their wiring 
forms loops with a large loop area, establishing strong magnetic fields 
that strongly couple harmonics of the square waves used to control the 
motors.  The fix is to reduce the size of the current loop.


It would be interesting to know if any of this might be part of the 
problem at the wind farm near ZL6QH.  I'm forwarding this email to the 
RFI reflector.


73, Jim K9YC

On Fri,4/1/2016 5:22 AM, Brian Miller wrote:

Thanks Frank

I was previously the chair of the Quartz Hill User Group responsible for the 
ZL6QH station.

We undertook measurements of the noise from the wind farm at the ZL6QH site. A 
report on our measurements is published at 
http://www.zl6qh.com/rf-noise-measurements-quartz-hill-2009-v3.pdf .

The ZL6QH wind farm used Siemens 2.3 MW variable speed turbines. We  believe 
the noise was generated by the water cooled electronic power converter 
technology that was used to convert the variable output of each turbine to the 
fixed voltage and frequency of the national grid.

Our observations suggested that a HF contest station would have be located at 
least several km from a wind farm using these turbines to reduce the 
interference to an acceptable level on the low frequency bands.

But not all turbines are this noisy. We also conducted some HF radio frequency 
noise measurements at the Meridian Energy Te Apiti wind farm (near Palmerston 
North) in October 2005 but found no evidence of any significant noise being 
radiated by the turbines, even at locations within 100 metres of the nearest 
turbines. Unlike the turbines at Quartz Hill, the Te Apiti turbines were a 
fixed speed design and did not use a separate power converter unit

73

Brian VK3MI ZL1AZE

--

Message: 7
Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2016 15:59:34 -0400 (EDT)
From: donov...@starpower.net
To: TopBand List 
Subject: Re: Topband: Wind Farming
Message-ID:
<990159030.6273859.1459367974629.javamail.r...@starpower.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8

The Quartz Hill Contesters -- once very well known as ZL6QH --
were forced to shut down their spectacular contesting location
by the RFI from a wind farm installed in the same location as
their contest station.


http://zl6qh.com/logs/Quartz%20Hill%20Pictures%20-%20%20March%202010.pdf


73
Frank
W3LPL

_
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Re: Topband: Wind Farming

[Kees Nijdam]

ZL6QH is the only Long Path 160m qso I ever made.
Pity it had to switch off!

PE5T

--
From: "Brian Miller" 
Sent: Friday, April 01, 2016 2:22 PM
To: 
Subject: Re: Topband: Wind Farming


Thanks Frank

I was previously the chair of the Quartz Hill User Group responsible for 
the ZL6QH station.


We undertook measurements of the noise from the wind farm at the ZL6QH 
site. A report on our measurements is published at 
http://www.zl6qh.com/rf-noise-measurements-quartz-hill-2009-v3.pdf .


The ZL6QH wind farm used Siemens 2.3 MW variable speed turbines. We 
believe the noise was generated by the water cooled electronic power 
converter technology that was used to convert the variable output of each 
turbine to the fixed voltage and frequency of the national grid.


Our observations suggested that a HF contest station would have be located 
at least several km from a wind farm using these turbines to reduce the 
interference to an acceptable level on the low frequency bands.


But not all turbines are this noisy. We also conducted some HF radio 
frequency noise measurements at the Meridian Energy Te Apiti wind farm 
(near Palmerston North) in October 2005 but found no evidence of any 
significant noise being radiated by the turbines, even at locations within 
100 metres of the nearest turbines. Unlike the turbines at Quartz Hill, 
the Te Apiti turbines were a fixed speed design and did not use a separate 
power converter unit


73

Brian VK3MI ZL1AZE

--

Message: 7
Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2016 15:59:34 -0400 (EDT)
From: donov...@starpower.net
To: TopBand List 
Subject: Re: Topband: Wind Farming
Message-ID:
<990159030.6273859.1459367974629.javamail.r...@starpower.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8

The Quartz Hill Contesters -- once very well known as ZL6QH -- 
were forced to shut down their spectacular contesting location

by the RFI from a wind farm installed in the same location as
their contest station.


http://zl6qh.com/logs/Quartz%20Hill%20Pictures%20-%20%20March%202010.pdf


73
Frank
W3LPL

_
Topband Reflector Archives - http://www.contesting.com/_topband 


_
Topband Reflector Archives - http://www.contesting.com/_topband

Re: Topband: Wind Farming

[Brian Miller]

Thanks Frank

I was previously the chair of the Quartz Hill User Group responsible for the 
ZL6QH station.

We undertook measurements of the noise from the wind farm at the ZL6QH site. A 
report on our measurements is published at 
http://www.zl6qh.com/rf-noise-measurements-quartz-hill-2009-v3.pdf .

The ZL6QH wind farm used Siemens 2.3 MW variable speed turbines. We  believe 
the noise was generated by the water cooled electronic power converter 
technology that was used to convert the variable output of each turbine to the 
fixed voltage and frequency of the national grid.

Our observations suggested that a HF contest station would have be located at 
least several km from a wind farm using these turbines to reduce the 
interference to an acceptable level on the low frequency bands.

But not all turbines are this noisy. We also conducted some HF radio frequency 
noise measurements at the Meridian Energy Te Apiti wind farm (near Palmerston 
North) in October 2005 but found no evidence of any significant noise being 
radiated by the turbines, even at locations within 100 metres of the nearest 
turbines. Unlike the turbines at Quartz Hill, the Te Apiti turbines were a 
fixed speed design and did not use a separate power converter unit

73

Brian VK3MI ZL1AZE

--

Message: 7
Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2016 15:59:34 -0400 (EDT)
From: donov...@starpower.net
To: TopBand List 
Subject: Re: Topband: Wind Farming
Message-ID:
<990159030.6273859.1459367974629.javamail.r...@starpower.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8

The Quartz Hill Contesters -- once very well known as ZL6QH -- 
were forced to shut down their spectacular contesting location 
by the RFI from a wind farm installed in the same location as 
their contest station. 


http://zl6qh.com/logs/Quartz%20Hill%20Pictures%20-%20%20March%202010.pdf 


73 
Frank 
W3LPL 

_
Topband Reflector Archives - http://www.contesting.com/_topband

Re: Topband: Wind Farming

[donovanf]

The Quartz Hill Contesters -- once very well known as ZL6QH -- 
were forced to shut down their spectacular contesting location 
by the RFI from a wind farm installed in the same location as 
their contest station. 


http://zl6qh.com/logs/Quartz%20Hill%20Pictures%20-%20%20March%202010.pdf 


73 
Frank 
W3LPL 

- Original Message -

From: "Jim Murray via Topband"  
To: "TopBand List"  
Sent: Wednesday, March 30, 2016 7:07:10 PM 
Subject: Topband: Wind Farming 

Hello all,There is talk of local farmers bringing in windmill companies. With 
the low prices now on milk it is one way to boost income. Wondering if anyone 
has experienced any interference/noise from the generators.ThanksJimk2hn 
_ 
Topband Reflector Archives - http://www.contesting.com/_topband 
_
Topband Reflector Archives - http://www.contesting.com/_topband

Re: Topband: Wind Farming

[Herbert Schoenbohm]

I don't have the IX here but when I drive by a large 250KW on the other 
side of the island I hear strong IX on the BC band for a 1/2 mile on 
either side. I think it is the inverters feeding back into the power 
line as part of the net metering system.


On 3/30/2016 3:07 PM, Jim Murray via Topband wrote:
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Automatic Cleanup! (topband@contesting.com) Add cleanup rule 
 
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Hello all,There is talk of local farmers bringing in windmill companies.  With 
the low prices now on milk it is one way to boost income.  Wondering if anyone 
has experienced any interference/noise from the generators.ThanksJimk2hn
_
Topband Reflector Archives - http://www.contesting.com/_topband


_
Topband Reflector Archives - http://www.contesting.com/_topband

Topband: Wind Farming

[Jim Murray via Topband]

Hello all,There is talk of local farmers bringing in windmill companies.  With 
the low prices now on milk it is one way to boost income.  Wondering if anyone 
has experienced any interference/noise from the generators.ThanksJimk2hn
_
Topband Reflector Archives - http://www.contesting.com/_topband