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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