A fairly thick collar (1/4" to 1/2" thick, and perhaps twice as long),
and fairly heavy for its size?
If that's a fair description of how it looked, it was probably a
rubber- or plastic-coated ferrite cylinder, through which the wires
ran. Ferrite cores of this sort are used to reduce the amount of
radio-frequency energy which travels along the cord, so that the RF
isn't conducted or radiated into places where it will cause
interference with radios and televisions. Technically it's probably a
"common-mode choke".
The fact that the original adapter had one, suggests that the
manufacturer of the equipment it's used with felt (or learned) that
there's enough RF leaking out of the equipment through its power
supply jack that an RF suppressor was necessary in order to meet FCC
emissions standards. If you use a replacement adapter without a
ferrite, there *might* be enough RF radiation from the cable to cause
a problem for somebody. Or, possibly not.
You can buy small two-part "snap-on" ferrites at electronics stores
and add one to your new adapter's cord. Just open the two halves of
the ferrite, run the cord through the center twice (wrapping it around
the outside of one half of the ferrite once), snap the two halves
together, and you'll be good to go.
--
Dave Platt <
[email protected]> AE6EO
Friends of Jade Warrior home page:
http://www.radagast.org/jade-warrior
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