Solar panels as faraday cage ?

[RobbieW]

I'm planning to add some solar, at long last, so currently discussing a framework with Phil in Nidri. The boat already has a tower for the wind gen so the suggestion is to tee off that to make a goalpost across the back. This gives me the ability to mount about 200w in 2 x roughly 1200x600 panels across the boat, one in front and one behind. Its a Rival 41 so narrow at the back which limits our options.

This suggestion will put the panels about 12-18" above the existing GPS/Navtex/AIS antennae which are on branches from the wind gen tower. The question is, will the panels blanket the signals to those ?

 

[LadyInBed]

I wouldn't think so, although the bottom of the pannels are aluminium there is a lot of open space around them.

 

[haydude]

It will not stop the signal from all satellites completely, but it will reduce the strength of the signal of those satellites in the direction of the panel You will notice this more in bad weather.

In general solar panels are also a source of interference to radio reception similarly to LED bulbs.

 

[DaveS]

In general solar panels are also a source of interference to radio reception similarly to LED bulbs.

My understanding is that it's the high frequency inverters of the more expensive constant voltage LED power supplies that cause RF interference and that there is no problem with cheap series resistor types (apart from possibly catching fire at high voltage). A solar panel by itself should produce pure DC with no RF issues. Are you sure it's not high tech switch mode charging regulators that cause this problem?

 

[rogerthebodger]

In general solar panels are also a source of interference to radio reception similarly to LED bulbs.

Its not the solar panel its the regulator more likely it the PWM regulators.

I found that when my regulators started to regulate my VHF radio started to get interference on both transmit and receive.

I solved it by fitting some big fat electrolytic caps across the output of the regulator close to the regulator.