My Hero was a gentleman from several decades ago who was a supervisor
based (I think in Richmond Va) and was up in Northern Va to tackle my
RFI issue when the local power people could not find my noise maker. On
2m and 17B2 on a 60' tower the noise was 20 over S9 and I could not
locate it in our neighborhood.
After he arrived he came to the shack I showed him the RFI. He and I
then drove around using his equipment but had no luck whatsoever hearing
it. I later showed him how directional my antenna was and he asked that
I leave the beam pointing at the noise source. While I was at work the
following day he flew over my house in a chopper to get an aerial view
of where my antenna was pointing and checked out the neighborhood etc.
There were some real HV lines about a mile away and he was thinking they
might be involved.
When I got home we got together again and he indicated that past my
neighborhood was a small patch of woods and then a completely different
closed-in neighborhood. He and I drove into that neighborhood and with
him following his notes we quickly ended up on the street where the RFI
was. His receiver was now able to pick up the RFI. Once on foot it took
us 5 minutes to close in on 1 house.
He knocks on the door and a gentleman who only spoke a few words of
English answers the door. He presents his ID and asks if we could come
in to do a sweep. The poor old guy must have been freaking out because
every room in the house had 2-3 people sleeping on the floors etc and he
must have thought we were the feds and they were all going to be kicked
out of the country.
Anyway it only took a minute to go into one room were the noise was
totally overloading his receiver. The culprit was a small AM/FM digital
clock/radio/alarm with nice red LED's. The investigator asked if he
could purchase that radio from the old guy for $20 (which he did) and he
explained to me that he was going to use this radio as an example for
classes he gives to train his people back in Richmond. He later called
me to let me know that in all his years he has never seen such a bad
case of RFI from such a small "innocent" looking home appliance. I
believe he said when they opened it up there was a component in the PS
section generating all the hash.
The distance from my tower to that house was about 3/4 of a mile. It was
also funny to hear my neighbors later telling me that I had a helicopter
hovering over my house. They must have thought my house was going to get
raided or something LOL.....Anyway I call that service !
Gedas, W8BYA EN70
Gallery at http://w8bya.com
Light travels faster than sound....
This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.
On 2/19/2020 9:12 AM, K9MA wrote:
I can only dream of such a response. Here (Madison Gas and Electric),
it takes months.
73,
Scott K9MA
On 2/19/2020 06:27, Michael Martin, RFI Services wrote:
Awesome job Don
RFI Services
Michael Martin
240-508-3760
rfiservices.com
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On Feb 18, 2020, 8:31 PM, at 8:31 PM, Don Kirk <wd8dsb@gmail.com> wrote:
Yesterday afternoon at around 3pm EST I tracked down a power pole 1.69
miles away from the QTH of KB9AX that was causing Dan RFI on 160 and 80
meters. Dan then reported the pole number to his utility company, and
they
completed repairs to this pole at 11:15am EST today (about 20 hours
from
the time I located this power pole).
The utility company provided a detailed repair report as follows:
"02-18-20 Checked pole 05N2001. Found tie wire on B phase loose and
arcing.
Neutral wire was not on insulator. Replaced B phase tie wire and fixed
neutral. Also replaced porcelain cut out and riser arrestor. Tightened
all
hardware on pole. Hopefully this will take care of the RF noise. 11:15
RD
RH"
I wanted to post this info as this is the fastest response time I have
every encountered from a utility company, and it sure improved my
attitude
regarding how some utility companies can indeed be very responsive.
Dan KB9AX just confirmed that repair of this pole solved his 160 and 80
meter noise problem.
You can see an unedited video I posted showing the last part of my
DFing
using 136 MHz on youtube at the following link :
https://youtu.be/l2bGvih-2JE
Note: I started the DFing using my new portable terminated flag to get
direction, then used higher and higher HF frequencies with a tuned loop
as
well as attenuation to narrow in on the signal until I could finally
hear
it on 136 MHz. Started to hear it on 136 MHz about 0.25 miles away as
I
recall. I will soon release basic info on my portable terminated flag.
Had to use 30 dB of attentuation when I was up close to the pole using
136
MHz, and in this case I wish I would have had 10 or 20 dB more
attenuation
to try when I was near the bad pole. I had previously never needed
more
than 30 dB of attenuation on 136 MHz, but in this case I believe
slightly
more attenuation would have been helpful.
It should also be noted that almost all the power lines (and power
poles)
between Dans house and this problem pole were radiating massive amounts
of
RFI when listening on HF, but I could not find anything up on 136 MHz
AM
when looking at them until I finally got within 0.25 miles of the
faulty
pole. This is really a good reminder for readers of this post on how
valuable 136 MHz (or higher) is for finding the pole that really is at
fault.
Just FYI,
Don Kirk (wd8dsb)
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