Thanks Tom. I think I have it narrowed down with a portable. The line going
to our home is spliced to the main line along with another line going to a
building across the highway. At that spot there is a ball of wires with some
kind of what appears to be a metal fixture (clamp etc.). Just not familiar
with hardware used. Noise drops at building across the highway around the
meter etc. and down the main line in both directions. Noise just below the
junction is loudest I could find. Thanks to all the good people on the forum
I've accumulated a folder of RFI, grounding and bonding info that I'm sure
contain the solution. One lesson learned is to check 160 before you start
laying in radials etc. I didn't have an antenna that I could tune that low.
At our old qth I left a nice radial system and moved here last fall and spent
the summer working on another radial system. What's ironic is that the power
company put in a new feed line to the house since they said the old one was
corroding copper etc.. They did it for free as long as we would replace the
meter and line to the main panel, which we did. The ironic part is they left
me the old wire and I used it for one of the radials:). I think it weighed 20
pounds, all copper. Regards,jim/k2hn
Wet weather noise is often corona related, but sometimes defective
insulators, cracked, scored, or dirty. I had problems with 345kV line corona
in Ohio when the weather was damp.
Dry weather noise is often slack spans allowing the metal pin joints or ball
and socket joints in insulators to arc from capacitive coupling. The metal
on metal corrodes and makes a tiny layer of oxide that arcs from capacitive
coupling and leakage. Hitting a pole with a hammer finds that, because it
shakes the wires and wiggles the metal joints.
There are so many different things that can cause noise, however, that any
Internet diagnosis is mostly a wild guess.
The best thing to do before doing anything is try to track it with a VHF AM
radio, like a portable aircraft radio. I have commercial noise locating
equipment, but the last time I lent it out it came back broken. :(
73 Tom
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