Interference from PV Solar Systems

[Ewan Parsons]

When tracking VHF Motus tags using an SRX receiver or similar we have seen significant interference from PV Solar installations. 

One of our collaborators has proposed installing a new receiver on a building with an extensive PV Solar installation on the roof.  Given the interference we've seen when manually tracking there is concern that this PV Solar system may affect the new receiver.

Has anyone experience, good or bad, of installing receivers close PV Solar installations?  Are there any ideas about what may be causing the interference?

Are there any recommendations for minimum separation distances between the PV Solar installation and the Motus antenna/ receiver?

Many thanks

EAP

Ewan A. Parsons
PI Projects #291 & #307

[Arne Andersson]

This is a well known issue in the radio community, if you google "RF interference from solar panels" you will have plenty of info. Normally it is not the actual panels causing the problem but the inverters, converting DC into AC. Not much to do on the Motus side, except keeping a distance between your antennas and the solar panels. Unfortunately, the solution to the problem is usually on the solar panel side. Buying high-quality inverters and engaging an installer that knows how to do a proper job solves many problems.

Arne Andersson

[Bart Noort]

Hello Ewan,

Yes I have seen serious disturbance by solar panels on our tagging frequencies, this was at a test location with permanent equipment installed, it showed a nice day/night graph. So at test days' the complete solar parks were shut down for our tests.

 

In this case no sun was no disturbance! 

I don't think all solar panels / converters generate a lot of noise. But some do for sure!

 

This graph was generated 30m from the solar panels, and noise was 6dB lees at every double distance to the receiver.

 

 

 

 

Bart

 

 

--
The Motus Wildlife Tracking System (Motus) is an international collaborative research network that uses coordinated automated radio telemetry to facilitate research and education on the ecology and conservation of migratory animals. Motus is a program of Birds Canada in partnership with collaborating researchers and organizations. Learn more at https://motus.org
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Motus Wildlife Tracking System" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to motus-wts+...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/motus-wts/67394aa2-21f0-4516-9d00-00ffdf93d96an%40googlegroups.com.

-- 
Best regards,
 Bart                            mailto:bno...@gmail.com

[Bart Noort]

Hello Ewan,

Yes I have seen serious disturbance by solar panels on our tagging frequencies, this was at a test location with permanent equipment installed, it showed a nice day/night graph. So at test days' the complete solar parks were shut down for our tests.

 

In this case no sun was no disturbance! 

I don't think all solar panels / converters generate a lot of noise. But some do for sure!

 

This graph was generated 30m from the solar panels, and noise was 6dB lees at every double distance to the receiver.

 

 

 

 

Bart

Op dinsdag 8 november 2022 om 01:17:13 UTC+1 schreef ewa...@gmail.com: