I've had since moving to my new QTH a cycling RFI that sounded like arcing
and spectral plots confirmed harmonics of 60hz. This only occurred after
sunset and quit at sunrise so I suspected it would be a yard light of some
sort. The cycle was about 30 seconds on and anywhere from 20-45 seconds on.
Needless to say it made chasing DX difficult as it was 13db above the noise
floor.
I finally recently discovered in the basement my old 7" ferrite rod antenna
with a tuning capacitor that I had ginned up a few years ago for RFI
hunting on 160 and 80m.
My first attempt at DF with it showed the nice null that I desired using a
Tecsun PL660 receiver. Interestingly one end of the rod when nulled pointed
to my neighbor's house.
I mentioned it to him at the mailbox and he volunteered that he had such a
light cycling (he thought it was operating properly) but it was on the far
side of a building from me and the road so I never saw it. It also was
quite dim as it was trying to fire, failing then retrying all night.
After sunset that evening the noise began and I gave him a call on his cell
phone and he happened to be near the light switch so turned it off and the
noise disappeared! He said he would leave it off until it was repaired.
I offered to help pay for its replacement but he declined and said he would
take care of it.
Saturday night and Sunday night I was treated to nothing but atmospherics
while chasing DX.
What a relief!!! And so glad I didn't need an extended DF triangulation
hunt!
Great to have friendly neighbors!
73
jim ab3cv
_______________________________________________
RFI mailing list
RFI@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/rfi
|