[RFI] RFI chasing. and cable leaks.

[Roger (K8RI)]

"Used to be" on cable, I believe 145.25 was the audio sub channel for 
cable ch 18.  I don't know what they have there now with digital, but I 
don't thing they had to change.

I posted this quite a while back, but I've never had a sense of time.

When I lived in Alma Mi in the early 80s and the local frequencies most 
used were 52 and 58.
Based on my old memory:
I was coming into town just checking frequencies I hit a full scale 
signal on 145.25.  Don't know what I was doing down there, (1980 is a 
long time ago - check the archives) but just scanning frequencies. I hit 
a full scale frequency on 145.25.  It was just as I was padding the 
local cable office.  It was after 5:00 so they were closed, so I drove 
around town and found many cable leaks.

The next day, I stopped at the office, went and told them, but they 
weren't worried until I keyed my HT. The screens tore up, so I switched  
from low to high power (5W) and the screens went plank. The tech said, 
"that's because you're so close.  I walked out to the car IIRC about a 
100 feet away and keyed the HT..  The tech appeared at the door 
frantically waving at me.  I walked up and asked if he wanted me to turn 
on the mobile at 50 watts.  He said no, the HT at 5W  in the parking lot 
was taking out the cable service for all channels for the entire town.  
I explained that there were quite a few of running 50 watts mobile 
around town to reach the regional repeater.

The next afternoon when I came into town...silence.  I did hear it at a 
few intersections and those were silent the next day.  They must have 
had crews scrambeling to tighten connections for a couple of days.  They 
were unconcerned about messing with hams, but when they saw first hand a 
simple hand held HT could dump the entire system they quickly changed 
their approach to one asking us to report if we ever found any leaks.

I now live just outside of Midland MI where my 100 Mbs internet 
regularly shows 120 Mbs on single file downloads and I've seen over 
1333.6 Mbs total on multiple files for less than half of what I use to 
pay for service via the land line for service in the low Kbs range and a 
100 Mbs ain't cheap, but as I just said, it's less than half of what I 
used to pay.  OTOH when the kiddies get home from school and the gamers 
get on, I don't expect to see those speeds

I wonder what would happen if anyone around here were on the 4 or 5 GHz 
bands?  I think we have bands in those areas.  I have a small satellite 
dish. I wonder if I could use it on my network? Any one have dimensions 
or point me to a book?

I  have two stations tied to these computers.  Lightning has wiped out 
an expensive array of computer equipment, but apparently the strike was 
satisfied with out going after the ham equipment that was connected to 
those computers.  I want to protect my SO2R setup.

73

Roger (K8RI)



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