[RFI] My 80m noise

[Kelly Johnson]

Following along on the other 80m noise thread, here's my problem.

My QRN level increases whenever it rains, but mainly on 80 meters.  My
normal noise level on 80m is about S3.  It climbs to S9+ whenever it
rains.  After the rain stops, the QRN level slowly drops back down to
"normal" over a period of maybe 30 minutes to 1 hour.

I took my FT-817 and a 5 element handheld 440MHz yagi out during the
rain last night to look for the source.  I probed all of the nearby
power lines and heard nothing.  The switching power supply in my
computer generates more noise than anything I heard while exploring
the power lines.

To add to the mystery, the QRN that occurs during the rain cannot be
controlled with my noise blanker.  It sounds like white noise as
opposed to something related to 60Hz.  Whenever I have obvious
powerline noise, the noise blanker will knock it down but the QRN I
get during the rain can't be killed with the noise blanker.

I suppose it could be something farther away, but man it would have to
be really strong to generate S9 at my receiver.

Anybody have any clues what this might be?