[RFI] Caught in the act!

[jimk8mr at aol.com]

Last Thursday night I sat down at 10:30 pm for my weekly effort in the Northern California Contest Club NS Sprint, a half hour contest for CW hotshots. Things were going good on 15 meters when at 10:35 pm a strong noise suddenly showed up at my usually relatively quiet suburban QTH. It raised my noise floor by about 20db from the usual on 15 and 20 meters, perhaps a bit less on 40 and 80 where atmospheric noise was more of a factor.
After the contest ended at 11 pm, I decided to do some quick checking. I drove down the street in the direction of the noise holding an HT out the window, and found a noisy spot about a quarter mile from my house. I then went back with on my bike (well lit, on a very lightly traveled street) with the HT and a 432 yagi. I found an area within a pole or two where the noise peaked. There was no visible arcing, so I went home for the night.
In the morning I repeated the trip on the bike, and then drove back with my W1TRC ultrasonic detector. I easily found the culprit pole. Then looking around, I noticed a broken side mounted insulator on the high voltage line, with that line laying across the service drops to four nearby houses.
I went home and called my RFI contact at First Energy, who was out of the office. But his voice mail message gave an 800 number to call in an emergency, which I did. Once I got the agent to understand that the problem was not at my house, she then wrote up a trouble ticket. By the time I came home from doing some projects at 5 pm, the issue had been repaired.
I don't have good measurements, but it seems that the noise in that direction is now somewhat less than it had been before. Had I been hearing low level leakage across a cracked insulator? That I may never know for sure.
I wonder what the chances were that I'd be on the air when that insulator broke? And if not for me, whether I caught it immediately or at some later time when chasing noise, how long would that high voltage power line been laying across those low voltage lines? And what could have happened with that?
This list does not pass photos, but I'd be happy to send a photo of the bad pole to anyone interested.

73  -  Jim   K8MR