Some time ago, I brought my, and those of others in my small town, RFI
problem here to discuss. I was having a constant 10 dB over S-9 noise level
on 80 meters, as were several other hams in the vicinity.
At times, my noise level rose to +20 dB over S-9.
The RFI specialist with our "local" power company who had come to my
station a couple of months ago to check on noise, came again, without being
asked, last week, bringing his fancy multi-thousand-buck instrument with
him.
Within an hour, he had found and eliminated, temporarily, one particularly
bad source of noise which was originating in the neon light sign for a
pharmacy, at a local supermarket which was several blocks away.
Although I had DFed and mapped this noise source some time ago, so I
knew that there was one very near to that local supermarket, I had not
tracked it down to the exact source. He found it in only a short time. The
owners turned the sign off until they can get it worked on, and my noise level
dropped approximately 10 dB.
He then found another source, about another 5 blocks from my station, in a
direction almost 180 degrees from the first source, which was caused by two
guy wires touching one another at another power pole.
Fixing THAT reduced my noise level another 5 dB.
So, I have now got "only" a constant 5 dB over S-9 noise level on 80.
Lots more work to be done, but this still makes me happier than I was before
he came.
I have ordered the parts from Mouser and am going to build at least one of
Tom Thompson's portable noise receivers as soon as I possibly can, then we
are going on several DF-peditions until we get this problem knocked down to
a more reasonable level.
Keeping my fingers crossed...
Ken W7EKB
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