{"id":26495,"date":"2017-03-01T17:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-03-01T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/merryjane.com\/marijuana-grow-lights-ham-radio\/"},"modified":"2017-03-01T17:00:00","modified_gmt":"2017-03-01T17:00:00","slug":"marijuana-grow-lights-ham-radio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/merryjane.com\/news\/marijuana-grow-lights-ham-radio\/","title":{"rendered":"Marijuana Grow Lights Interfering with Ham Radio Transmissions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Amateur radio operators across the country have recently been noticing a harsh audible buzz when switching on their equipment. The source of the interference has been traced to <a href=\"https:\/\/wgme.com\/news\/local\/growing-problem-pot-lights-give-ham-radio-operators-a-buzz\" rel=\"nofollow\">cheap electrical ballasts<\/a> used to regulate indoor lamps that are used to grow marijuana. The cheap ballasts that are causing the problems often have fake FCC-compliance stickers, which may go unnoticed by amateur growers.<\/p>\n<p>Marijuana grow lights can be powerful enough to generate the same amount of radio interference as a 1,000 watt AM radio station, and one of the cheap ballasts popular among home marijuana growers was found to produce 640 times as much interference as a legal, FCC-approved unit.<\/p>\n<p>The American Radio Relay League has filed four complaints to the FCC regarding this interference, but have yet to receive a response. &quot;My prediction is that as more and more states legalize marijuana, the number of growers is going to increase exponentially and overwhelm the FCC&apos;s ability to regulate it,&quot; said retired Coast Guard officer and ham radio enthusiast Roger Johnson.<\/p>\n<p>Johnson has tried to get legislators in Maine to ban the sale of these cheap ballasts, but a committee vetoed the bill as it could pre-empt federal law.<\/p>\n<p>Colorado-based amateur radio operator Tom Thompson took matters into his own hands and created a filter that almost eliminates the interference. He said that he seeks out home-growers causing interference so he can &#x201C;give them a filter and give them instructions how to install it. Some won&apos;t cooperate, but most do.&#x201D;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Homegrows going H.A.M.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26496,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3036],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Marijuana Grow Lights Interfering with Ham Radio Transmissions - Merry Jane<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/merryjane.com\/news\/marijuana-grow-lights-ham-radio\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Marijuana Grow Lights Interfering with Ham Radio Transmissions - 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