Topband: Ole Blue and power line noise

[dt]

In the following "Ole Blue" refers to my 'Walkman' 
A.M. receiver.

Around here the fall season is time to dig taters 
and check out beverage antennas.
Tater crop was ok but the two phased beverages 
looking to NE had a problem.
Both seemed to be staring down the barrel of a 60 
cycle hum.

Me and Ole Blue went for a walk and found what 
seemed to be most likely source of the hum.

We happen to be within few spans of end of line 
for our power provider and looked like that was 
good spot to examine.

Called our provider and next day we had an 
Engineer on the farm carrying a super-duper 
snooper with shiny yagi.

Took him to pole where Ole Blue had treed
and it didn't take the Engineer long to decide 
that Ole blue was barking up the wrong tree.

His super-duper snooper tells him the noise coming 
from points north of his company's line.

The northern power company ends their south bound 
lines just one little farm north of us.

Called the northern provider and next day we once 
again had a service man willing to make some tests.

He opened two circuit breakers on end of his line 
and my noise didn't go away.

Back to my provider.
This time , no snooper, but the man with the long 
pole came out and cut the big switch that serves 
this area.
Noise didn't go away.

Me and Ole blue went for another walk.
We went north past the first two end of line
service drops from northern company.

About 1 1/2 miles north from our antenna Ole Blue
started barking and set down at intersection of 
'Rocky Point Rd'

We went back to northern company and to our 
surprise next day they were back down here,
this time with the pole man and TWO engineers.

They were willing to be very helpful and allowed 
me to take them to the Rocky Point Road pole.

The young engineer got out his super-duper 
snooper, smaller box, but looked very professional.

He looked all around with his equipment and 
decided Ole Blue was barking up the wrong tree.

He decided best place to look was just two spans 
south, pole located in farmers feed lot.

They moved the cows out and moved the big pole 
truck in, opened the switch and my noise did not 
go away.

They talked it over, got out their long 
telescoping switch opener pole, managed to get 
three big guys and the pole into the little car 
and headed back north.

(They left the pole truck in the feed lot cause it 
was up to the axle in mud, pulled it out two hours 
later.)

They drove past Rocky Point road and north to 
another 'big switch' and cut off heck of a lot of 
service in their area.
Bravo! noise went away.

Problem, now they  had to come back to Rocky Point 
road and climb the pole where Ole Blue treed 
originally.

Opened the breaker and noise went away.

They now had the noise narrowed down to two 
subscribers and about ten spans.

At this point I took Ole Blue and went home.

They got their truck out of the mud and rest of 
the afternoon they spent trying to identify the 
problem on the short route.

Next day they notified me it would be some time 
before they could get back to the problem.

I was curious why so obvious a problem in so small 
an area was too big to solve in one afternoon.

Me and Ole Blue went back to Rock Point road and 
walked down the road.

Ole Blue was exited and knew he was on to 
something. Got about four poles down the lane
and Ole Blue started doing back flips.

The hum was so loud I decided to put a copper rod 
about 3 inches into the ground and measure ac 
voltage off the back stay.
Measured about 4 volts ac.

Next day I went to the office of the maintenance 
department, explained to them that this noise was 
going to cause serious problems in this game of 
contesting.
Manager was very nice but said they had revenue 
producing jobs that had to be taken care of and 
they would get to it when they could.

On way home I remembered that I had forgotten to 
tell him about the 4 vac measured on the back stay.

I called the Engineer and casually mentioned my 
measurement  results.

Two days later, big truck pulled up in the yard 
and very friendly maintenance man ask if I still 
had the noise.

I checked and noise was gone.

They had found time to rework that short line.

BTW, that noise source was 1 1/2 miles from my 
antenna. Tuning up the band from 1850, the signal 
slowly went down. Around 4 mhz it was not noticeable.

Doug,
2nd in command at wd5r