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To quote Pogo, we is met the enemy and he is us!
The ol' noise problem seemed to come back Saturday. Not quite as
loud, but there. There all day Sunday, and part of Monday. Left the
power company engineer a message late Monday, and immediately
afterwards noticed it was gone. Had to leave another message that the
RFI was gone. About the same time I had been using the company laptop
(on battery) at my shack desk to do some programming on a ham shack
project (a little program for tracking the channels programmed into my
VHF/UHF FM rigs). Eventually the battery ran down, and I plugged it
into an extension cord amongst the various power cords in the shack.
Not long after that, I noticed the RFI was back, in spades. It was
even louder on 20 than on 40 (in the past, it had normally been louder
on 40). A neuron or two fired in my brain, and I reached down and
disconnected the laptop power cord. The RFI level dropped immediately.
Now, that laptop had been running all weekend (which is not usual).
It has a s-Video output, which makes it useful for connecting to the
TV for watching streaming video. And I had hooked it up to the TV
Friday, and it had been sitting there, hooked up to the TV, until
Monday, when I had done my bit of programming. A little later Monday
evening, a few more neurons fired. I dragged the laptop back to the
TV. A quick check of the radio revealed the same level of RFI I had
heard all weekend. Aha!
A little bit later more neurons fired. About 3 weeks ago (about the
same time I originally called the power company engineer), I had a
(different) Compaq laptop stop working. It powers up, but doesn't
boot. This laptop was normally left on 24/7. It sat on the coffee
table in the TV room, where I could look TV Guide and do other things
while watching TV. Now, both this laptop and the company laptop have
worn out their power supplies, and had to have their switching power
supply bricks replaced. Replaced not with the original vendor's
supply, but with cheaper supplies. I think some of you see where this
is going. The old laptop wouldn't boot, but it powers up, which is
enough for a quick test. I plugged the old laptop in, checked the
radio, and the old RFI levels were back.
At this point, I am very glad that the power company never rolled
trucks on my problem. It wasn't their problem.
Odd thing is, I thought I had eliminated that laptop. I know at one
point I did the 'shut all power in the house down' bit to try and
eliminate things in the house as the source of the RFI. Since I
didn't have a portable source of 12V to power the radio, I had to
leave the power to the shack on. At one point that laptop was in the
same room as the shack, but I can't imagine not turning the laptop off
while doing this test. Oh, well.
Soooo. Keep the company laptop off when I'm operating, and I should
be able to contest to my heart's content. I'm glad I got this figured
out before WPX.
Ben
- --
Ben Coleman nj8j at benshome.net
"I love the way Microsoft follows standards. In much the
same manner that fish follow migrating caribou."
Paul Tomblin
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