[CQ-Contest] Power Line Noise Elimination or How to fight the power company

[Dale L Martin]

Congratulations, Tom, and thanks for the good info.

I had intermittent noise in my subdivision.  It was s9 on 80m-10m and seemed
to be most active during days of high humidity (in Houston, that means most
of the time).

I contacted the local power company and they sent a guy out, but his two
attempts to locate the noise source happened to be on nice, clear, dry days
and so he missed hearing the noise.

When I discussed it with him by phone later, he told me to call him when I
heard the noise.

Two days later, I called him and he came out, tracked the noise source to a
doorbell transformer in someone's house a half mile away and explained to
the owner what the problem was (doorbell transformer wiring was arcing).

The noise went on for another week or so, so I went to the homeowner and
told them that I was the one who had called the power company to find out
where the interference was coming from.  I told them that an arcing doorbell
transformer is a real fire hazard and can be replaced for a few bucks.  The
owner replaced it (or disconnected it) the next day.

I've learned from that experience and have since found and 'fixed' two more
such occurrences since then.  All were 'fixed' by reminding the owners of
the fire hazard a bad doorbell transformer poses.

Interestingly, in all three cases, the owner's radio and televisions were
seriously being interfered with (as were their immediate neighbors), yet
they continued to tolerate it.  Next to the fire hazard aspect of the
problem, telling them that fixing the doorbell transformer problem might
clear up their television/radio interference problem probably helped spur
them to action.


73,
dale, kg5u