[ADXA] power line blues

[Jussi Eloranta]

Hi,

Recently I started getting terrible power line noise (raspy, 60 Hz 
multiples) especially on 160m. It seems to come and go: most prominent 
when it is dry/windy weather. Goes away when humidity goes up 
(fortunately often at night). I have driven around the area around my 
QTH with my car AM radio on and have only found one source fairly close 
by: about 7 month old power line that leads to the nearby chicken house. 
I can't get very close to it but the pole leading to it shows noise on 
the AM radio. It is not the chicken house fans as there is no 
correlation with the noise & whether the fans are on or off. Also the 
chicken house is currently offline since they apparently managed to get 
salmonella there... (Yuck!) Some of those poles are leaning pretty bad 
and it is likely putting quite a bit of strain on the wires. So the 
source is probably arcing, which goes away when water gets in there.

The local power company is somewhat responsive to the issue but they are 
completely clueless how to deal with it properly (Craighead Electric). 
To complicate things more, they do not have any ticket system so that I 
can't even track what they are doing. The have no gear or expertise to 
locate pole noise, so it seems that I basically need to locate the pole 
for them or otherwise they will just try going over some poles and see 
if they can find any issue. The latter probably will just lead them to 
conclude that we couldn't find anything. But I have limited access to 
where the poles are and don't have good gear to pin point which pole it is.

So:

1) What is the best way to deal with a situation like this?
2) Since MFJ is gone, there are limited options available for noise 
locating gear. Is there anything else? Perhaps loop & MW receiver or 
small yagi and VHF receiver? Any pointers?
3) Help ! ! ! :-)

Jussi (aa6kj)