These days, AT&T seems to have about a dozen suppliers. I'm not too sure
they even have a current contract with 2-Wire. Six years ago they had not
gotten a spec yet that they could farm out. They were clearly still in
discovery mode.
My neighbor's 3801 went toast not too long ago, and it was not replaced by
a 2-Wire unit. My 3801 is still with us. His new unit is *also* NOT
bothered by 160 QRO.
I read the URL. The actual problem is hardly discovered in that situation.
It's kind of like blaming a leak in the pipes on the well pump. The leak
does stop when you turn off the pump, right? So therefore it's the pump's
fault?
Turning off the gateway can stop a lot of electronic activity all around
the house. Including a lot of programming in the set-top boxes. Careful,
careful.
Chasing noise is demonic.
73, Guy K2AV.
On Sun, Dec 18, 2016 at 7:18 PM, Art Snapper <art@nk8x.net> wrote:
> Perhaps the 3801 isn't the only equipment being used. A quick search found
> this posting from three months ago.
>
> It references the AT&T 5268AC router. It appears to be made by Arris. This
> seems to be a voice gateway with wifi.
>
> https://forums.att.com/t5/AT-T-Internet-Equipment/Radio-
> frequency-interference-from-U-verse-equipment-on-Amateur/td-p/4888880
>
> Art NK8X
> ᐧ
>
> On Sun, Dec 18, 2016 at 6:53 PM, Guy Olinger K2AV <k2av.guy@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> On Fri, Dec 16, 2016 at 2:38 PM, Art Snapper <art@nk8x.net> wrote:
>> > There are numerous reports on the web from hams experiencing RFI from
>> and to
>> > Uverse. My main point is AT&T was complaining about receiving RFI,
>> without
>> > keeping their own house clean.
>> > 73,
>>
>> I'm sorry, Art. Just can't go along with you here. Nothing personal.
>>
>> I spent some time looking up hams, RFI, Uverse, etc., based on your email.
>>
>> An awful lot of the reports I found are over five years old, They
>> predate discontinuance of the 2-Wire (brand name) model 3800 gateway
>> box that AT&T used heavily on early Uverse.
>>
>> That actually is a big clue, because it verifies what I've always
>> thought, that the 2-Wire 3800 model gateway box was the source of a
>> lot of their troubles. The changes between a 3800 and 3801 were
>> extensive, including a massive increase of buffering memory (10 or 20
>> to 1 increase?) to improve the built in error correction. There was a
>> long list that our AT&T mentor told me about, and their experience was
>> that the 3801 could soak up a lot of trouble out in the cables. The
>> drop-off in troubles attributable to the gateway is testimony to the
>> success of that project, as is my and my neighbor's experience with
>> the upgrade.
>>
>> The 3800 was severely susceptible to strong ham signals on 160/80/40,
>> with certain frequencies capable of making the gateway reboot with 20
>> watts on the antenna, much less 1.5 kW. My old problem of rebooting my
>> and my neighbor's 3800 gateway with QRO on 160 was finally eliminated
>> with the 3801, which had just come out, and at that time was available
>> in restricted quantities. This time they were not going to lead off
>> with mass deployment. And they were keenly interested in my case,
>> described below
>>
>> Several reports that looked current (2016 in email header) in
>> references I saw, in the text were actually referring to much older
>> events. One 2016 email was complaining about something the email
>> itself said occurred in 2001. I thought that was interesting, still
>> complaining about something that happened 15 years ago.
>>
>> The 2-Wire 3800 is no longer manufactured, the Uverse tech support
>> "book" now has a list of customer complaints that automatically get an
>> existing 3800 replaced, regardless. No clue as to how many have been
>> deprecated. Nobody on my block has one anymore. Read on.
>>
>> They have gone to a practice of using coax from the interface where
>> the cable comes up from underground to the gateway box. Twisted pair
>> is no longer used for that. With certain repair activities, they will
>> automatically replace older twisted pair from cable entrance to
>> gateway box with coax.
>>
>> AT&T has a group, headquartered in New Jersey that is a national group
>> specifically formed to deal with ham radio issues with Uverse. It's
>> director is a well-known east coast ham, and they have the authority
>> to force local repair groups to follow certain procedures in
>> ham-related cases, and mark certain customers for automatic referral
>> to their group.
>>
>> Anyone who has a current problem of this sort, should get in touch
>> with the ARRL RFI task force, who will do an entry level triage to
>> eliminate common issues, and then give cases that pass triage to the
>> AT&T group I am talking about.
>>
>> They were good with my problems, really good.
>>
>> They simply do not fit your description, and I do not see current
>> timeframe references on the internet to paint them with the colors you
>> are using.
>>
>> What good does it do us to push and haggle to get a major company to
>> do the right stuff, and when they do, keep on beating them up
>> regardless, bringing up things that have been fixed for years?
>>
>> In my case, 2010-2011...
>>
>> 1) I had problems with temporary main telephone cable routing due to
>> the construction of NC Toll 540 (extension of I-540) and its
>> intersection with US 64. At some point ALL the old cable was replaced.
>> Things were dicey with cables where they were moving roadways back and
>> forth to maintain traffic while bridges were being built and old
>> roadways dug up and replaced with heavier construction to interstate
>> specifications.
>>
>> 2) The 650 foot buried drop cables from the pole out on US 64 service
>> road to both my and my neighbor's house were replaced and reburied
>> using a different route. Since 1980, when my house was first built,
>> widening US 64 from 2 to divided 4 lane roadway, stuff related to the
>> 540 highway, including some mistaken contractor digs, and a couple
>> cable-melting lightning strikes, over time had put so many splices in
>> the drop, that the cable itself was way out of spec and a problem.
>>
>> 3) Neighbor's in-house wiring was cleaned up and rerouted to reduce
>> lengths and avoid some wear points.
>>
>> 4) The Gateway box in my house was moved to a spot recommended by AT&T
>> after walking around the house describing the ethernet lines. This
>> replaced a 120 foot ethernet run from cable entrance to gateway with a
>> scant 8 feet, with the gateway in my wife's office. The cable entrance
>> is directly underneath the window in her office. AT&T did most of the
>> crawlspace crawling around under the house, even though technically it
>> was my problem and my expense.
>>
>> 5) Telco Common mode current blocks designed for the frequencies and
>> cables in use were added at strategic points on the ethernet around
>> the house. They were better than my #31 material FT240 choke wraps
>> made after K9YC specifications. (That is NOT a dump on K9YC.)
>>
>> 6) 3800 gateways at both houses were swapped out for 3801's
>>
>> 7) These items were done one at a time followed by a retest at 1.825
>> watching changes in power levels necessary to reduce error correction
>> counts and reboots. We did this in the wee hours so we wouldn't knock
>> the neighbor off her IP-phone line and internet. She worked a lot
>> logged in to VPN from home and had a lot of conference calls.
>>
>> This stretched out procedure kept me at low power until all fixed, but
>> it DID allow evaluation of individual steps taken, which they were
>> very happy to have.
>>
>> If I live to be 100 and keep Uverse until my last gasp, there is no
>> way they will ever recoup the money they spent fixing my
>> extraordinary, ridiculous case from the monthly Uverse bill. But they
>> did get a bunch of proven facts to use on procedures in their "book"
>> for these kinds of troubles.
>>
>> Again, anyone having RFI trouble either way with an AT&T Uverse
>> device, getting confused looks from local tech people who don't know
>> what to do, should go via the ARRL RFI task force.
>>
>> 73, and a great holiday season to all.
>>
>> Guy K2AV
>>
>
>
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