[RFI] RFI Frustration

[Jim Idelson]

Well, it's the night before the contest and the noise is still there.

It's a 24/7 noise and I can DF it in one direction with yagis on 40-10 meters. It's pretty broadband and it has a sputtering sound, somewhat like this light dimmer noise -  http://www.arrl.org/tis/info/HTML/rfi-noise/noise/noise-files/lightdimmer.mp3

found at 
http://www.arrl.org/tis/info/HTML/rfi-noise/appliances.html

Is a noisy light dimmer going to be a constant source or does it change with load and when turned off?
I had been listening for this at high frequencies, but when I saw that this is something that has a baseband frequency in the 150kHZ range, I tuned my big rig in the station down there on a 160m dipole, and there is a very loud noise at 157kHz. It is also very loud at 78.5kHz and at all multiples of 78.5kHz right up into the AM broadcast band. 


Suggestions for better DF'ing techniques? I've been outside around the neighborhood with my HT, sniffing power meters, wires coming down he power poles, etc. There are some hot spots, but nothing like a smoking gun.

I have a little time tomorrow to sniff around the neighborhood some more to see what I can find. I've been in the two closest house with the HT, but found nothing.

Wouldn't it be cool to find and eliminate this just in tme for the contest?

73,

Jim Idelson K1IR
email    k1ir at designet.com
web    http://www.k1ir.com