LED lights are very variable - the ones that are a capacitor dropper, rectifier and strings of LEDs are much better than the ones that pretend to be be a badly made switch mode supply jammed into a small space with no room for decent cooling or filter components.

But even with the SMPS kind you can achieve quite a lot by adding filtering at the fittings, just as the mains enters the lamp,  a simple  ferrite ring on the cables and some caps L-N can tame things quite noticeably keeping the RF entering that accidental antenna of the house wiring to a minimum.

Do not overlook the possibility of having different normal and on air lighting states, perhaps one or two filtered lamps, and the rest off.

The ultimate is 12V LED strip, switched to batteries while receiving, as it is purely passive.

What bands are you interested in, for HF a lot of the issues are really conducted or at least wiring related,  while VHF tends to be be directly radiated, especially from larger fittings.

Where are your antennas, how is your rig powered - mains battery etc do you have external earthing.

LED lights and a radio shack certainly can co-exist but some thought is needed not to accidentally raise the noise floor. Note that it is not just LEDS that have noisy power supplies, computer kit and ADSL lines are another source of HF trouble.

Mike

G7VZY

Thanks Mike, that's very helpful. I am aware of issues with ADSL etc. but want to address one problem at a time!

My antenna is an end fed half wave covering 80m to 10m but my main interest is in the lower (noiser) bands - 80, 40 and 20. The antenna runs from a pole 10 metres agl quite close to where the shack will be built. Equipment will be mains powered via a TT system.

Mike G8GYW

Another vote for LED strips when operating as they can also be positioned where you need them, like task lighting. Powered either off your existing clean 12V PSU or a separate 12V battery which has the advantage that when the lights go off you have been in there too long :-)

I can see strip lights being useful under a cupboard to illuminate the bench but for a ceiling light isn't a batten fitting more appropriate?

It rather depends how far you want to go, and if you sit in the half dark illuminated by the lights of the meter on the TX ?

Yes you want some proper lighting too, but falling back to the LEDs  is still a handy diagnostic to be able to turn the mains lights off, and still see the mug of tea.  

As you have TT earthing you will need to be careful not to inject too much crap into the system - every mA RMS into or out of the earth electrode is 10mV of ground bounce if your electrode is 10 ohms, and it may be higher than that. A balanced antenna relative to shack earth really helps.

It is quite fun/ helpful to put a  split ferrite ring with perhaps 5-10 turns of thin wire to a coax to the receiver input to make  a clip on “RFI current finder” to evaluate how much of an issue various things are going to be before you wire them in. If when you clip it round the mains or battery  lead the interference  levels pegs  the meter, it is worth looking at some more filtering or  a change of device. 

image of home made clamps similar to what I mean - taken  from here

Actually, I've just realised that the pent roof of my proposed building will be south facing so I can install solar panels. If I don't talk too much I might get away without a mains electricity connection ?.

Watch out for RFI from the solar inverters..

mapj1: 
 

Watch out for RFI from the solar inverters..

Yes of course. I'll turn them off …

Hi Mike. I have LED lighting throughout the house but do not experience any HF interference. I am lucky to live in a very rural location so have very low noise levels across the HF bands. Usually less than S1 on the lower HF bands and virtually noise free 20m up. From my understanding much of the noise problems experienced at HF are a result of VDSL broadband and I've deliberately kept ADSL2+ as I have overhead telephone line to the house. Try to keep your aerial away from obvious noise sources as suggested by mapj1 (Mike) and have a well balanced and/or matched feed. I'm sure a good RF earth will help too. I use a linear power supply rather than SMPS but good ones will provide frequency adjustment to eliminate interference from harmonics. If all else fails your plan to use battery power charged from solar will help.

Good luck 73

Andy GM0BZS

I tried an experiment by running my hf rig off a battery and knocking off the mains supply to my house to see if there was any reduction in noise on the hf bands. Unfortunately not, though whether some of the issue might have been noise coming in on the mains earth (PME and overhead supply cables) I didn't check. I am also looking at supply options for a future garden shack which will be about 50m away from the house and am seriously thinking about batteries topped up by solar without any mains connection to the house, however this will be right beside a local ground mounted transformer supplying a number of houses in our road. I know the things are supposed to be totally screened but wonder how much ‘noise’ might be escaping from it or the adjacent fuse cabinet.

Andy G1BED