I’ve learned a lot about RFI this past couple of days … The treadmill radiates RFI through the power cable, back into the power socket, and from there through the entire house’s ring main. Ring mains, a UK peculiarity invented after the war to save copper, are particularly susceptible to this.
You can easily hear the interference using an analogue radio and placing the radio around the house with the treadmill on and off. This page (currently not available) has some nice graphs from a radio frequency analyzer.
The solution was to purchase a power strip with a big choke and plug the treadmill (and nothing else) into it:
Although the lead from the treadmill to the power strip (and the treadmill triac itself) can still be heard on the radio emitting a lot of noise, it’s much better than having the entire ring main act as a huge antenna, and most importantly it no longer interrupts my ADSL line. Success!
Richard WM Jones 
So now that you’re all set, time to take the Half Marathon challenge!
See how long it takes you to get to 13.1 miles in a workday. My long day so far is 11.5 — tomorrow I’m going for it. If I succeed, I’ll put up pics of my treadmill’s dashboard. 🙂
Heh … ask me again in about 6 months 🙂
Thanks for sharing all this useful information!
Why did you decide to build your system around a treadmill and not an elliptical machine? There’s no impact on the joints, and you’re not risking falling off…
I’m not sure what an “elliptical machine” is, but judging by this GIS it involves using the arms and there’s no place to put a desk.
Thanks for the quick reply!
Naturally, one would have to remove the upper part of the handles to use this as a desk
My focus is on the no-impact feature – in these devices, your feet are always in contact with the trainer. I fear the strain on the joints (heel/knee) due to all those impacts, however slow you walk. Do you think the impacts are a non-issue?
In any case, I found this discussion thread:
http://officewalkers.ning.com/forum/topics/2015808:Topic:1909?id=2015808%3ATopic%3A1909&page=2#comments
but no conclusion there.
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