Wow thats horrible.
It sounds for sure that the cable is horrid and badly installed.
On Cable you should never ever have anything even resembling this. If
it is installed correctly, you should be able to run 1500 watts and not
know it. It's getting into the cable system someplace.
Try this on your 6 meters.
Go to the channel where you have the greatest interference.
Run as low power as possible just so you are tickling it.
Now while doing so,, rotate your beam, try to maximize the interference
with the beam. Once peaked, go outsideand see where it's pointing, and
then go to that location with binoculars or whateber and try to look for
loose connections, or un ternimated taps.
Many low end cable companys will have taps on the main line. and fail to
ternimate then with a 75 ohm load when not beingused, and this just
invites your signal to get INTO the cablend from then on itts piped
further down the line for you.
Try that.
Joe WB9SBD
The Original Rolling Ball Clock
Idle Tyme
Idle-Tyme.com
http://www.idle-tyme.com
On 1/10/2011 7:54 PM, John Geiger wrote:
> Thanks for all of the replies and information so far. Here are some answers
> to questions people have asked me, plus some additional details about my
> station and TVI.
>
> The neighbor used to be on rabbit ears a few years ago and had TVI quite
> often from me. Never complained except for one time when the University of
> Oklahoma was playing in the national championship game-we live 60 miles from
> OU. I was on 30 meters at that time.
>
> SInce then they have gone on cable. She said the interference didn't occur
> very often now and wasn't concerned about it. Seems like she could live with
> it. DIdn't tell me not to operate or to do anything to my station. Almost
> seemed sorry that my daughter and her daughter brought it up to me. It did
> happen last night and I was on 6m at the time. I was on HF much of Saturday
> doing the NAQP. Didn't get any reports of TVI then. I tried to find out when
> else I was bothering her TV but she really didn't volunteer any information.
> She didn't say that it occurred on Saturday or was bad then or anything like
> that.
>
> The neighbors are on the same cable system we are. I have a TV in the shack
> about 5 feet from the rig, another in the living room about 15 feet from the
> shack, and a few others in the house. Did some testing today with the
> in-shack TV and the one in the living room.
>
> On 6 meters this afternoon on 6 meters it was shutting off the TV in the
> shack, and was causing some interference on the one in the living room. I
> had the 6 meter antenna going into an antenna switch so I could switch it
> between 2 different rigs. I bypassed this and ran the antenna's coax
> straight to the antenna tuner. This eliminated the turning off the shack TV
> and lessened interference in the living room.
>
> Later tonight I tried out the different HF bands on the TVs. On the living
> room TV HF caused some lines in the screen or other interference on the lower
> TV channels. The shack TV wasn't affected much but then it was on a higher
> TV channel. Just tried it on a lower channel and it was taking a beating.
> Lowering my power to 25 watts eliminated problems in the living room TV.
> Also eliminated the interference on the shack TV.
>
> So that is the current situation. I have a Drake Low Pass filter all
> antennas go thru, and the antenna tuner is grounded using 1/2 or 3/4 inch
> braid to a ground rod outside the shack. Don't have a connection to the rig,
> but then it is grounded thru the tuner anyways using the coax jumpers between
> the rig and the tuner. The antennas are a homebrew G5RV type dipole and a 3
> element yagi for 6m.
>
> 73s John AA5JG
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Ron Notarius W3WN
> To: aa5jg@fidmail.com
> Sent: Monday, January 10, 2011 8:40 PM
> Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] Power levels and TVI
>
>
> Before doing anything else, you need to find out exactly what's being
> affected. Otherwise, you may waste time and energy on the wrong solution,
> that is, "fixin' sumthin' dat ain't broke."
>
> How many TV's are affected?
> How old are they?
> Are they all on cable?
> Is the cable itself, how should I put this, uncompromised? (I can tell
> you from experience that, shall we say, creative cable splices can compromise
> the system and let leakage in)
>
> Does it happen on all HF bands, or only one?
> Does it happen on CW, SSB, RTTY/Digital, all?
>
> ...
>
> I know of a case of someone who had 4 TV's. one was a cheapie (at the
> time) portable on rabbit ears. It picked up everything, but of course, it
> was all the fault of the ham. None of the other sets, no other neighbors, no
> other electronics had a problem. When that set was put on cable, the problem
> disappeared.
>
> At my previous QTH, I found out the local cable company was blaming me for
> QRM to (then) cable channel "14". Turned out the problem was caused by a
> botched splice (no shielding!) at someone's house, when they tried to add
> extra rooms "on the cheap". Oh, and this house was located near the 140 '
> commercial tower that carried municipal communications, including the local
> VFD, and guess what they actually were picking up?
>
> If it's cable leakage, or an old cheap set in a plastic case (no
> shielding), reducing power may not cure the problem, especially considering
> the proximity. Worse, you may find that reducing power doesn't fix the
> actual problem, but forces you to compromise (by running lower power) which
> doesn't fix a bad install or a cheap set.
>
> Also, try a high pass filter on the feed of the set itself. Might not
> help if it's a shielding problem on the set itself (plastic case) but might
> help if it's the cable.
>
> And... get ahold of Ed W1RFI up at ARRL Hq and ask him for suggestions.
> He's forgotten more about RFI/EMI than I'll ever know!
>
> Good luck!
>
> 73, ron w3wn
>
> Jan 10, 2011 02:07:45 PM, aa5jg@fidmail.com wrote:
>
> I found out yesterday that I am having some occasional TVI with one of
> the
> neighbors. She is really cool about it but I don't know if it is also an
> issue with others in the neighborhood, plus I would like to be courteous
> about my operating as well. I am using a low pass filter, so I am
> assuming
> that the TV's front end is getting overloaded at times, as our houses are
> only a few feet apart and they have cable for TV instead of picking it up
> off the air. I am running 100 watts to a pretty much unity gain antenna.
> What power levels do others find works to reduce TV overloading? Would
> going to 25 watts make a big difference? Need to drop power further than
> that?
>
> 73s John AA5JG
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