Dealing with telephone RFI:
>>Already have had to buy the lady next door a so called
>>"Bullet Proof" phone; she calls/receives calls all day, it seems!
>>But am not going to do that for the entire neighborhood, well
>>the other six or so homes around here.
Unfortunately, she is running a Bed and Breakfast business there, and
likes to wander about the premisis using a cordless phone. I have
gotten her to believe that there is really nothing I can do to fix the
RFI when she is using her cordless. I have put ferrites/K-Com filters on
her
lines to the base unit; perhaps some help. She also has a
telephone answering machine; and has had me over to listen
to the sort of hash that she records when I am on the Hawaii
Afternoon net on 40 meters. She can record the hash until
I cut my rig power to below about 75 watts, then she is
happy as nothing is heard from me on her answering
machine. I am not aware of a "Bullet Proof" answering
machine, is there one available? I have put fettites and
K-Com filters on the line to the answering machine; also
ferrites on the AC power cord for the machine.
I also have put the K-Com in line RFI filters on her phone lines,
and on two of the neighbors phones. Have never heard from
them since, so guess they are happy. I presumed I should
use something that came in a nice plastic package and
looked "store-bought" so they would allow me to do the
installation as a trail, to see if that would solve the problem.
Fortunatley, my next door lady with the B&B has said she
understands that this is my hobby, and everyone has to
have a little fun, so she is accepting of a bit if it happens
to occur, at least that is what she has told me so far;
I have not heard from her about this matter in many
months now.
She shot herself in the foot once, however. I got a very irate
call one morning from her brother who came for a visit from
the mainland. He was livid about constant TVI; she had never
mentioned such to me. I was not operating, but went over
anyway. Sure enough, there was a persistant pulsing of the TV
video picture. That I was there and not home operating made
no matter to the brother; it certainly was my fault. I began to
fiddle with the TV to see if the ferrite filter I had put on her
AC line was still in place; it was. We are on cable TV here.
Then I noticed a strange
looking gizzmo on the floor, in the room corner behind the TV.
I asked what that was. She said, "Oh, I bought that yesterday,
it is my new electronic Cockroach eliminator; it is supposed to
drive them away!". I asked if I might unplug it a moment.
The TVI ceased the moment I pulled the plug on the unit.
I suggested she put it somewhere else in the room, away
from the TV to see if the interferrance would cease. She
moved it to the opposite cornier, wahla, no more TVI.
The guy still grumbled that he had heard me the afternoon before
when he was trying to make a VIP call back to New York. I asked
which of the phones he was using: the cordless, of course,
out doors by the pool!
>By causing interference to your neighbors you discredit amateur radio,
>Jim Reid.
Well, I have tried to be helpful as outlined above. They gave
me he__ when I put my quad antenna up in early 1992 out here,
w/o a permit. That resulted in a long battle for a zoning variance/
use permit. Which was eventually granted AFTER Hurricane Iniki
later that Summer, and AFTER I had successfully gotten ALL
the neighbors in contact with there friends/relatives back on
the mainland, and for the lady next door, to her family in
Norway: all using the remnants of what was remaining of
my quad after the storm- the driven loop tossed up over
the top of my retracted crank-up! One gal was so grateful
she even brought over a bottle of JD whiskey, from Tennessee,
I think it is! Of course, I had much mainland help from hams
anxious to relay messages on of the health and welfare sort.
>On my Web site there is information on building a RF filter
>for telephones that is optimized for the ham bands. The cost is under
>one dollar each. The parts can be purchased from Mouser. The RF filter
>can be wired into one end of a standard RJ11 cord set. // I test the
>neighborhood phones by calling each neighbor. I find out if the neighbor
>can tell when I am sending bursts of 50wpm cw dits during the
>conversation.
To maintain my on-going relations with the neighbors, these are
excellent suggestions, and will do so after the new amp arrives
and is set up. Will probably have to go through the whole thing
with the lady next door again, until we discover what output power
during her busy times of the day I can use, and not bother her.
It is clear that CW signals are much less often noticed by them,
nor by my wife, and are not near the trouble that an SSB signal
seems to cause.
>I wouldn't want to read something like this in the newspapers: '''Ham
>Operator on Kauai Causes Infant Death By Interfering with 911 Call'''.
That would be frightening should it occur, as well as awful!!
73, Jim, KH7M
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