[Mldxcc] Weird source of QRM - Solved!

[Emileigh Starbrook]

I had an intermittent QRM problem - it wasn't bad above 15M but it was
really getting on my nerves.  This morning on 30M it was intolerable.  And
today it was persisting.

The noise was a one second spurt, about S-8 and very consistent.  On my rig
I finally discovered it was at 1.05MHz though the harmonics were horrible.
I never thought it was coming from inside the house since the house is
stucco and the antenna is outside.  I couldn't have been more wrong.

Armed with my trusty Yacht Boy (who's antenna I removed.)  I finally found
it was inside.  WIth a 1 second beat, I started looking at clocks and other
things that had a 1 second cycle I finally tracked it down to my partner's
computer, which was in sleep mode and had a blinking light.  Waking it up,
the QRM went away.

I wasn't content to stop there so looked at one thing that might be getting
polled, and sure enough there was the problem. Unplugging the keyboard with
the computer asleep made the QRM go away. But alas, it wasn't the keyboard!

Her keyboard was a PS-2 keyboard, and when I upgraded her computer
motherboard to an i5, it didn't have a PS-2 keyboard port.  I had to use a
PS-2 to USB adapter.  And that was the culprit. Using my USB keyboard on it
proved to eliminate the noise completely.

Oddly I had another of these adapters on a server, that for security reason
only wakes up to receive backups.  It had a similar adapter albeit a
different manufacturer and a different keyboard.  And sure enough - it had
the same problem.







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I couldn't wait for success, so I went ahead without it.
- Jonathan Winters