[RFI] Clothes Dryer Noise

[Doug Grant]

I have had a problem at my vacation house/contest station with broadband noise across the 80M band, typically s5 to s8. I recently installed a 4-square, and the noise peaked in the general direction of my own house. Looking at the display of the 756Pro3, I could see a very broad peak across most of the 80M band, and a second, not-quite-as-broad peak around 2.5 MHz. I could hear the noise on either the 4-square or the 160 vertical. It does not seem to be a problem on any other part of the spectrum.

I switched off the breakers in the house one by one, and the last one I hit, the 220V breaker pair for the electric clothes dryer, killed the noise.

The dryer was not operating at the time.

Has anyone else seen this? 

I am assuming the noise is really in the dryer someplace, although my next test will be to leave the breaker on and unplug the dryer at the wall outlet. I suppose it is possible that there is another source of noise somewhere, and the length of the loop to the dryer outlet is the right (wrong) length to radiate it efficiently.

73,

Doug K1DG