[Antennas] Off Topic: RFI - AM Broadcast

[Tim]

Starting early Friday morning I started having trouble connecting to the
internet. I thought "well water has gotten into the prone box again" (it was
raining at the time) so I investigated that possibility. That was not the
problem so I pondered other possibilities and came up with nothing
reasonable. I had not changed anything about the shack or anything else I
could think of so I decided to call the local phone company and see what
information they could offer ... expecting to hear the same interference on
the handset that I had heard on the modem I picked it up and nothing ...
completely clear dial tone. With a confused look on my face I called the
phone company and asked them to a technician call me back and again
proceeded to ponder the situation. I attempted to identify the source of the
interference ... I couldn't quite make out what it was I was hearing through
the modem, but I knew it was voices so I pickup the handset while the modem
was trying to connect. It was the local AM broadcast station, their tower is
about 500 yards north of me and it was their signal I was receiving through
my modem. To the best of my recollection I do not ever recall having
interference like this before so I called the station and asked to speak to
an engineer to see if anything had been changed about the transmitter or if
he had heard any other complaints and was their a possibility that something
had gone wrong. I finally got to speak to the engineer and he said he had to
got to the transmitter the next afternoon for a required FCC inspection and
field strength survey and would this be soon enough to get back to me with
some definitive answers. I agreed and he called me yesterday afternoon and
sure enough nothing was wrong that he could determine. I have yet to get
straight answers from the phone company yet other than mine was not the only
complaint, but there is no one there on the weekend of course.

My query in reference to all of this is what could possibly have changed
that would allow such a drastic amount of interference in my modem and what
would you guys suggest as a possible solution? I recently saw postings in
reference to RFI on the list and ordered the "Fair Rite" Catalog, but with
about a dozen visitors over the past 48 hours I have not been able to
consider it's contents in this situation. The time is currently 9:52 CST and
I am sure I will not be able to send this message until dusk when the
station reduces power to 5KW so in the mean time with no plans of visitors I
am going to try additional grounding and maybe some of the chokes I have
taken from other items before I trashed them.

Looking forward to your comments.

73 DE KD5CKP