[RFI] RFI from arcing power pole 1.1 miles away (video capture of the arc)

[Don Kirk]

Update:  I called this bad pole into Duke Energy yesterday morning (pole
number, distance and direction from a known address and intersection,
details of the bad cable, etc.), and this morning I received a call from
one of their linemen who was trying to locate the pole because his dispatch
had not provided the pole number.  While talking with him he located the
pole and was surprised the connecting cable (from the underground feed to
the middle phase line) had not already had complete failure.  He said they
need to get this fixed immediately but it would require a scheduled power
outage on that phase (middle over head line which they call Phase B) and he
needs to get permission from his supervisor for the power outage, so it
might not happen immediately but it will happen quickly.

P.S. When dealing with Duke Energy I normally try and get their customer
service to report the poles I find that are generating RFI to their "Power
Quality Group" which is the group that deals with RFI issues as they try
and confirm and better diagnose the problem using some Radar
Engineers equipment they own (including the Radar Engineers Model 251
parabolic ultrasound dish).  Since this case was so obvious I just asked
that the pole get serviced by their linemen as soon as possible, and looks
like this was the correct approach and glad I did not have to bug their
"Power Quality Group" this time around.

Just FYI,
Don (wd8dsb)



On Mon, Dec 20, 2021 at 2:36 PM Don Kirk <wd8dsb at gmail.com> wrote:

> Utter disappointment Saturday morning when I was getting ready for the
> Stew Perry 160 meter contest when I noticed new RFI on 160 meters as well
> as 80 meters to my East, and spent the morning tracking it down to a pole
> 1.1 miles from my QTH. My portable flag with laptop based SDR receiver made
> it very easy to home in on the suspect pole using 80 meters, and then used
> 136 MHz with 4 element Yagi and portable AM radio to isolate the bad pole
> from adjacent poles. Also used 438 MHz with 4 element Yagi and my laptop
> based SDR to confirm my findings.
>
> I went back last night (Sunday night) after sunset to see if I could see
> the pole arcing because I was pretty sure I knew where the problem was
> based on some very up close pictures I had obtained earlier in the day
> using a 14.1 mega pixel camera with 35X Optical Zoom. I went to the pole
> about 2 hours after Sunset and before even exiting the car I could easily
> see arcing where I thought it would be.
>
> Today I uploaded a video onto youtube that captures the arcing as well as
> some up close pictures that captures the hardware problem on the pole. Here
> is a link to that video for those interested. https://youtu.be/-iU1wbb8Na0
>
> It never ends, but at least this case was obvious.
>
> 73,
> Don (wd8dsb)
>