[ADXA] power line blues

[Stan Stockton]

Jussi,

I’m not sure what you have up but I know you have some Yagi antennas.  Those antennas should have pretty sharp nulls off the side.  I would determine the general direction using the back of the antenna and then determine the exact direction with the side null.  If your antenna is pointed at 300 degrees, for example the null would be at 30 degrees or 210.  Check it on a couple different antennas to see that they agree.  Then I would plot the exact direction with a line on a mapping program.  Depending on how far away the source is you may have a line that goes right through the pole on the map.  If you had a way to do something portable and have two lines from two starting points on the map, even better.  You could then go out with a portable radio and directive antenna, if possible, and confirm you have found it.

Stan, K5GO

> On Mar 22, 2026, at 10:14 AM, Jussi Eloranta via ADXA <adxa at mailman.qth.net> wrote:
> 
> 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)
> 
> 
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