What can i use to stop my cb radio from messing up tvs?

Question

im in a nabor hood close to homes i have a base station hooked up some say it mesey up there tvs is there any kind of filters i can use to stop it thank you

Answer 1

There are several things you can do to, but ultimately its the TV owners problem. If you truly are causing interference, its because their TVs are improperly shielded meaning they are probably old or cheap. If they have cable TV they should call their Cable company and they should fix the problem.

If you can move your antenna higher, that will help a lot, put a filter between your radio and the coax to the antenna.

I put an antenna up one time, never hook a radio to it and I still got several complaints that I was messing up peoples TV. People see an antenna and they start complaining.

Answer 2

not positive this will work, but generally radio waves can be blocked with aluminum tape or better yet copper tape.

Answer 3

Make sure your radio is compliant with FCC regulations.  CB radio operators are not under exempton from interference complaints, so you must be sure your radio is an FCC type-accepted unit without any modifications whatsoever.  

Answer 4

No - its not the TV owners problem.  If you're messing up their reception, they could call the FCC and you could be fined up to $10,000 for this.. The answer is simply to fix your CB.  It's likely you have an illegal unit in some way.. Could be an import, "peaked" and "tweaked"  or you have a linear amplifier which is all illegal.  The process of peaking a CB disables the filters designed to eliminate this.  You can have this repaired - or purchase a bandpass filter which goes between your antenna and your transmitter.  This should eliminate the problem.  Also properly grounding the antenna, mast and radio can help as well and will give you more lighting protection.  Drive an eight foot ground rod at the base of the mast - hook up a number 6 copper wire to this then to the mast, bring this into the house and hook this to your radio and linear.  The side benefit to this is the less you tear up your Neighbors TV the more power you will actually be radiating into the air and the further you will go!    Grounding will help a great deal in your range.

Next if the problem still persists, it is likely a cheap TV set as the other commenter suggested.  It can also be an amplifier on their side or even their antenna.  Many of the antennas purchased today have amplifiers built into them.  If they have a regular antenna with no amplifier, there are filters you can purchase at radio shack to put on their TV which may eliminate this problem.  If they have an amplifier, you may have to put a filter in front of and back of the amplifier.  If they have an antenna with an amplifier built in, this is more difficult to resolve.. If you're not good with electronics - I would suggest buying them a new antenna without an amplifier.

Why buy them a new antenna and do all of this?  If you don't, the FCC is sure to come knocking.  They can confiscate your CB and antenna and issue a hefty fine which will be much more than your neighbors TV and antenna combined - even if they have a fancy big screen plasma.

Working in radio as a broadcast engineer - many times I have replaced people's TV when the new local radio station starts tearing up the picture or sound.  It's a lot easier and cheaper to do that, than the other route.  For more information http://www.NexusBroadcast.com