[SEDXC] [sedxc] S9+ Noise Levels and Great Cobb EMC Response

[Ralph]

Great story Jim!  

Yup I’m the ham behind Home Depot you mentioned and I also had the same great experience with Emory and Cobb EMC about 4 months ago.  Emory had just started as their Power Quality foreman.  

My lightning arrestor was a little easier to find because you could hear it buzzing from the ground.  I also had them out a couple years ago and they went to great lengths to resolve multiple line noise problems here.  They sent bucket trucks through the whole sub division trimming trees around the power lines.  They ended up rebuilding a noisy AGOD switching unit up on Hwy 92 and also found a bad lightning arrestor over by I-575 and US92.  They spent well over a week working on that project.

Greg Ivester is the Power Quality Engineer at Cobb EMC.  He is very helpful and has a great responsive group.  Top notch and just nice people to work with.  I’m glad you had a positive and successful experience too.  I wish all hams could get this level of support from their power company.

73, Ralph K1ZZI        

From: Jim 
Sent: Tuesday, May 29, 2012 9:25 PM
To: sedxc at yahoogroups.com 
Subject: [sedxc] S9+ Noise Levels and Great Cobb EMC Response

  
All,

Just wanted to let you know how happy I am with the response that I received from Cobb EMC regarding tracking down a S9+ noise source that was hitting me on 160m through 70cm. I sent Cobb EMC an email on a Saturday and received a call on the following Tuesday, about 3 weeks ago. We met at my house and let the crew foreman, Emory, listen to the noise I was hearing on all of the bands. He agreed that there was a problem and told me he'd do his best to solve it. Unfortunately, Emory had taken over his position about 4 months ago and by his own admission hadn't worked too many of these issues during that four months. I discovered that I was case number four and he was truly clueless as to how to proceed other than driving around with his AM radio set between stations listing for static.

He identified what he believed was the pole with the loudest noise level and proceeded to tighten all connections, bolts staples and other bolt/nail on equipment and also replaced the lightning arrestors on that pole. In the process of doing this my neighbors came out and asked what we were doing and when I explained to them that we were trying to eliminate a static source we started to hear about all of the problem that they'd been having on their AM radios, cable TV, and telephone service. The more stories that they told the more attentive the Cobb EMC representative became. After completing all maintenance on the first pole they left for another appointment with the promise to keep working on it. 

The two days later I received a call from Emory who told me that they had cut off the power to my cul-de-sac for an hour with no reduction in the static level. He said that while he had the power off they serviced the poles on that line and where the line attached to the main supply line. He asked if there was any difference to which I responded no. 

Driving to work during the following week I was talking with the normal drive-time bunch on the Kennehoochee repeater about the problems that I was having with tracking down the noise source when Mike Greenway, K4PI, jumped on the repeater and told me that he'd had good success using a homebrew ultrasonic parabolic dish. I asked if I could borrow it, he agreed, and the next day I was at his QTH borrowing the dish. After a brief training session I was on my way back home. Upon arriving at my QTH I pulled out the dish and started scanning on a pole in a direct line with the direction that my antenna indicated was the point of maximum strength. I scanned the entire pole and when I aimed at the lightning arrestor I heard a distinct low frequency buzzing/humming sound. I checked several other poles in the vicinity and could not detect any other poles with noisy equipment.

I called Emory with Cobb EMC and told him that I thought I knew which pole and the device they should work on based on using an ultrasonic listening device. He said that he would be happy to meet me on site to see if the lightning arrestor that I had identified was the source of the problem. He volunteered that he had been back out to my subdivision during the previous week and were unsuccessful in trying to locate the problem during that visit as well.

Today when I met him by the suspect pole I let him listen to the detector and he agreed that it was emitting a sound. They used their bucket truck to remove the arrestor and the second that they cut power to the arrestor all noise ceased! They went ahead and replaced the arrestor and when they power everything back up there was total quiet.

While wrapping up Emory told me that they had a bunch of test equipment at their shop, including an ultrasonic dish, but no one had told him how to operate any of it when he took over his position. He asked me if I wouldn't mind some weekend having him come to my house with the equipment and have me explain what it was supposed to do and how to use it. I told him that I had no experience with any of that type of equipment but he said that based on all of the help I'd given him track down the problem he was sure that I could figure it out. I told him to give me a call and we'd work out a time that worked for both of us.

In summary I couldn't be more pleased with the level of support that I received from Cobb EMC and specifically Emory Benson. The problem is solved, I made a friend, and I'll get a chance to play with electronics that are way above my pay grade when he calls me back. My biggest piece of advice is get involved; don't just call and expect the problem to be solved. I ended up taking a total of 10 hours of personal time to meet with Emory on two occasions but it was well worth it. One thing that he said that made me smile was that the last problem that he'd worked on was for a ham on US92 near I-575 behind the Home Depot. That one turned to to be a lightning arrestor also. He said that that fellow was a pretty nice guy as well. 

73,

Jim Studer, AK4I



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