Hi All, I've got to get in on this one.
I'm a former Cable employee. I have about 20 years cable experience and
about the same in satellite dishes. KJ7AZ is my callsign.
First story,
There was a ham in our area that was so negative about cable that he set up
his packet bbs station with a 300 watt 2 meter amp to reach a digi 1/2 mile
from his home. Plus it was set up to beacon every 30 seconds. This totally
wiped out channel 18 for much of the area around his home. At the time 18
was ESPN so you know how much trouble it caused for us. In this case it was
a deliberate act on his part and very wrong. We were very active in CLI
repair and prevention before this time but this clown would blame every
little buzz on his two meter on the cable office no matter what. So now,
everyone with a push on VCR jumper or poorly shielded TV was getting wiped
out. Anyhow, we did the best we could, fixing fittings, replacing old
splitters, replacing any old 59 drops with RG6, and replacing push on
jumpers until finally we moved swapped channels with ESPN and the Spanish
channel. At long last, after he had alienated all his ham buddies, he moved
away.
Second story,
I was installing dishes in a little town north of here. Their cable TV
system was owned by the city and run by the city cop. The bill for cable was
included with in everyone's water bill. (A true mom and pop operation.) When
I would drive into town I would notice that I could hear the cable system on
my two meter radio. I could hear the audio loud and clear when I tuned
around. And this was while driving over the entire town. I was installing a
dish and turned on the TV. The customer had perfect pictures with a rabbit
ears antenna of all the cable channels. The next several houses were the
same. I went to the city hall and asked to speak to someone about it and the
cop came in. I explained that there was a problem and the signals were
interfering with ham radio and aircraft radio. He explained to me that if he
saw me in town again I would be arrested and that ham radio was illegal in
his city. (Note; this is a town of about 100 families.) I took a quick
reading with the equipment I had in the car and estimated the leakage at
6,000 microvolts. The information was sent to the FCC. After two
correspondences with the FCC and a brief FCC investigation, the town was
fined 20,000 dollars and ordered to shut down the system until it was
repaired. That's the power of the ham. I do believe the cop was dismissed, I
never saw him again.
Thanks all....
Tim/KJ7AZ
-----Original Message-----
From: rfi-bounces@contesting.com [mailto:rfi-bounces@contesting.com] On
Behalf Of Fred Stevens K2FRD
Sent: Saturday, October 28, 2006 8:53 AM
To: rfi@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [RFI] FW: Interference on TV using 2 meters
Chuck, very good story and good work! Hams are constantly blamed for any
type of interference by neighbors' who are having electronic entertainment
problems. I'm frequently catching heat (albeit friendly heat) from others in
this tiny desert RV park in nowhere, Arizona. Distorted signals and lost
signals on their marginal reception broadcast TV channels, "funny noises" on
their AM radios, lost signals on their satellite TVs, and voices on their TV
audio are the usual complaints. I take them on one at a time, explaining
I've actually transmitted a total of maybe five minutes in the last three
months (I'm a DXer, listen for new ones far more than actually attempt to
contact them), that in addition to the intermittent RFI from a high tension
power line about 1/2 mile south, RVs and the RV lifestyle is RFI rich from
generators, inverter-generators, inverters, DC water pumps and other DC
motors, power tools, thermostats and a dozen other appliances inside RVs,
and the occasional t
rucker going by on the nearby Interstate using an illegal CB amplifier all
contribute to local RFI. And no, Jim, my HF vertical is not in the line of
reception of your Dish Network TV dish because it's too far away (200+
yards) and your satellite is at a much higher angle than it looks.
Education is a wonderful thing. Too bad people assume the worst until proven
otherwise.
73 de Fred K2FRD
At 8:38 AM -0500 28/10/06, Charles AF4O wrote:
>This reminds me of a situation that happened to me many years ago,
>probably about the late 1980's.
>
>A neighbor about 2 blocks away complained to the catv company that he
>was getting interference on channel 18 (one of the superstations, WGN I
>think).
>
>Anyway, it ended up that myself, the homeowner, the catv technician, and
>the city manager (not sure how he got involved, city mayor is only part
>time) were there.
>
>Of course the city manager and tech (bear in mind the catv company was
>city owned) implied it was all my fault.
>
>The homeowner was actually blaming the catv company (smart fellow). The
>catv tv tech saying their system was tight and routinely checked, blah,
>blah.
>
>Well, I stated boldly that I can prove that its catv leakage and not my
>fault (looks of disbelief on the manager and tech).
>
>I called the local power company which is about 1/2 mile away and asked
>them to identify their transmitter (153.680). With ht in hand on 153.680
>and homeowners tv on channel 19, they identified. Sure enough it wiped
>out channel 19.
>
>The looks on their faces was priceless. The tech fixed the poor
>connections and replaced the drop. Problem solved.
>
>Thank goodness most around here nowadays have 18" dish's and channel 18
>on the catv is now CSPAN hihi.
>
>One exception is a neighbor several houses down trying to use an over
>the air gull wing preamplified camper antenna on their house to pick up
>fringe area (60 miles away) channels and chewing me (first phone call
>was a threat...tell him to get off that cb or something will be
>done....) about 6 meter rfi, geez.
>
>I can watch any of 5 direc tv supplied tv's in my house rfi free.
>
>73
>Chuck
>AF4O
--
73 de Fred Stevens K2FRD, VO2FS
http://homepage.mac.com/k2frd/K2FRD.html
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