[ADXA] power line blues

Sun Mar 22 17:02:59 EDT 2026

I use a 3 ft long whip for a sense antenna while mobile on something quiet like 27/30 mhz area. Under the pole signal is 9+. Following a noisy line which is something like S2-5. These can vary depending on the strength of the source. Usually seeing anything over about 5 or so, I switch up to upper VHF and with a 3 element yagi and AM mode to be able to tell where to go from there.

It takes some patience and a bit of learning, but I usually discount light noise when under a line and rather focus on the big ones. Keep in mind the possibility that a weak noise in your yard/house can be as debilitating as a big one a mile or two away. Lower bands like AMBC, 160, and 80 have signals that can travel a line or wire for several hundreds and thousands of meters with multiple lobes with a long wire antenna effect. That’s why I go up toward 10 or 11 meters and long range fox hunt there to focus more on the source than on a propagated signal running everywhere.

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________________________________
From: Jussi Eloranta <eloranta at aa6kj.hopto.org>
Sent: Sunday, March 22, 2026 3:07:03 PM
To: Mark Graves <mgraves at avecc.com>
Cc: Stan Stockton <wa5rtg at gmail.com>; ADXA <adxa at mailman.qth.net>
Subject: Re: [ADXA] power line blues

I took the 6m beam heading, threw my 6m mobile whip on the car, packed my old k3 and started driving towards the beam heading. What a painful trip! There are at least 4 potential sources and in almost all of them the power line makes a turn away from the highway and heads into private property (barbwired). There are no houses or anything, just fenced off forest and the power line runs through there.

Now, I am not sure what kind of signal levels I should expect on the radio when I am near an offending pole (S9, S9+60,...). I hear rattle here and there near power poles. But this probably does not matter as I don't have access down the power line to see what is going on. I am guessing checkmate :-(

And of course there is even no guarantee that the noise I hear on 6m at my qth is the same as I hear on 160m. On the latter band I don't currently have any directional antennas.

Jussi (aa6kj)

Mar 22, 2026 1:28:12 PM Mark Graves <mgraves at avecc.com>:

AM broadcast band is usually very misleading. Like Stan suggested, get a bearing with an HF yagi and go that direction with something like 10,11, or 6 meters in the mobile. When you drive by the noisy line section, you will know it. If you're next to something offensive, you can verify it easily by jumping up to 6 or 2 meters. It's best if a yagi and AM mode is available to pinpoint farther. If you have an oscilloscope or audio scope that can verify the signature is what you hear at home matches the site, you're there. Get a pole tag number if possible. GPS or address and describe or snap a picture of the pole if inaccessible will be good to give to the power company. Dry days usually shrink wood poles and aggravates loose hardware of some sort. Could be bolts, pole top pins, corroded bell joint pins, cross arm lags, or backed out staples. Do you know what your system primary voltages are? The higher, the more critical that things stay in good condition with the hardware.
K5OO

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From: adxa-bounces at mailman.qth.net <adxa-bounces at mailman.qth.net> on behalf of Jussi Eloranta via ADXA <adxa at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Sunday, March 22, 2026 1:07:30 PM
To: Stan Stockton <wa5rtg at gmail.com>
Cc: ADXA <adxa at mailman.qth.net>
Subject: Re: [ADXA] power line blues

Hi Stan,

On 3/22/26 11:59 AM, Stan Stockton wrote:
> 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.

I can now actually hear it also on 6m. Unfortunately, there may be at
least two separate sources. One that gives a constant hum and the other
that is intermittent.

The hum is present on 160 but then dies off quickly, 80m hard to hear
and then it can again be heard on 10 and 6m where the background noise
is very low. So that leads me to think that it is located somewhat far
away. This source is east from me (based on my 6m beam heading), along
AR-115, which is about a mile away from me.

The intermittent source (knocking / clicking), is likely from the nearby
chicken house power line. But that that is west from me. Kind of hard to
locate exactly as it just disappeared again.

By the way, I found a nice way of tracking this on the radio. Set the
radio to AM and run wsjt-x on it. You will see (well, hopefully you
don't) nice lines of 60 Hz multiples. This is how I can detect it on 6m
with 6 el yagi. Otherwise it is hard to hear by ear on 6m (on 160m it is
loud).

Looks like I have some more driving to do. But there is definitely the
raspy hum at the chicken house power line.

Jussi (aa6kj)

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