[AMRadio] Hash on 3710

[Rob Atkinson]

Right.  I do my best to be sure about the pole because cooperation goes down
with an increase in false positives.

I have a VHF AM airband hand held rx so that's my sure thing.  I've tried
the yagi trick but walking around at night in neighborhoods with the yagi
wearing headphones gives people the wrong idea.

The steet lights are the worst.  First, they are only on at night when it is
cold and dark outside.  Not the most pleasant conditions to be out walking
around.  Second, they have no noise component in the VHF region.

The ultrasonic dish thing costs around $300 but if it in fact allows one to
walk around and immediately nail bad poles like fish in a barrel it might be
worth saving my dollars and getting.   Every hour I blow tracking down noise
is an hour lost that could be used to work on gear, or operate.   I spent a
huge amount of time last fall and winter chasing bad street lights.  If the
dish would let me walk outside and find a problem in 15 minutes it would be
worth the money in time saved.

73

Rob
K5UJ

On Mon, Oct 4, 2010 at 12:38 PM, Radio Station KW1I <kw1i at earthlink.net>wrote:

> The higher the frequency of the AM radio the easier it is to zero in on the
> right pole.  A handheld aircraft band AM radio (just above the FM broadcast
> band) would be very good.  If you can get a portable radio for 2 meter AM
> with a beam you could go into business locating power line noise!
>
> I located a noise emitting pole and phoned it in.  The department I called
> gets a lot more calls on real or imagined noise than they end up tracking
> down.  I gave them a pole location and when they finally went out there and
> fixed it the foreman got back to me how delighted the crew was to have
> actually been directed to exactly the right location.
>
> Dale
> KW1I
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Todd, KA1KAQ" <ka1kaq at gmail.com>
> To: "Discussion of AM Radio in the Amateur Service"
> <amradio at mailman.qth.net>
> Sent: Monday, October 04, 2010 12:56 PM
> Subject: Re: [AMRadio] Hash on 3710
>
>
> On Mon, Oct 4, 2010 at 12:20 PM, Rob Atkinson <ranchorobbo at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > In the mean time, I just had a eureka moment--I have an old radio shack
> 10
> > m. transceiver at home collecting dust. It is one of those HTX-10s--25 w.
> > ssb, 7 watts AM. Hooray, an AM rx on 28 MHz! That should be a great way
> > to drive around and get close to the actual poles where the noise is
> > coming
> > from. Anyone used a 10 m. AM rx for this purpose? mag mount antenna on
> the
> > car roof?
>
> Can't offer any insight for that approach Rob, but I had good success
> using the radio in my old truck with the volume turned down a lot,
> tracking down the bane of my existence at the former house: faulty
> low-pressure sodium street lights. Those things would cycle on and off
> and could be heard for a long distance on HF. The Power company was
> good about getting out to fix them too, I think they appreciated the
> fact that someone did the work for them without a fee. Cycling made
> them easy to spot visually, of course, but occasionally one would just
> be noisy as hell from when it came on to some specified time it
> finally warmed up or continually.
>
> When you do locate a problem pole, be sure to get its number as well
> as the street location. Makes it a whole lot easier for them to find.
> Sometimes I had to give geographic descriptions or other details if
> the number was missing, or in one case, duplicate poles with the same
> number ("It's the second pole 27 heading south on Rte 12").
>
> Good luck with it -
>
> ~ Todd/KAQ
>
>
>
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