[RFI] Christmas light display

[Jeff Blaine]

Turns out this was not a Christmas light display, but apparently is a 
MOV on a pole in front of the guy's house.

Diagnosis and tracking involved driving around looking at signal levels 
on a PL660 SWL.   Then looking at higher and higher frequencies to try 
to localize.  I still could not identify a particular pole though.

Next step was to use a MFJ VHF noise detector which allowed me to 
localize down to a 4 pole location over a 200' area.  The local power 
company was not motivated to go out and check into it with this level of 
diagnosis.

So a buddy K3PA brought over his industrial stuff today and we got it 
nailed down to a single pole which has a pair of MOV. Tools used in that 
were a 440 yagi with a Yaesu FT817, then a confirmation with a Radar 
Engineers Ultrasonic/UHF detector.  The guy had an ultrasonic dish but 
we did not need to use it.

The power company was updated with my single pole diagnosis and today 
promised they would contact me for repair details in 48 hours.  That 
would be great and just in time for the SP next weekend!

73/jeff/ac0c
alpha-charlie-zero-charlie
www.ac0c.com

On 08-Dec-18 12:15 PM, Jeff Blaine wrote:
> I'm going to go see a neighbor today who always has a great looking 
> display about this time each year.  This go around, he's expanded to 
> even more and better looking stuff.
>
> The problem is when it fires up the noise floor from 160 up through 
> 10m bumps up a few dB to a few tens of dB.  And the guy is about 1/2 
> mile away!
>
>
> Looks like the primary energy point is about 6 Mhz which was a 
> surprise.  Very wide banded.  And amazingly strong.
>
> 73/jeff/ac0c
> alpha-charlie-zero-charlie
> www.ac0c.com
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