[Antennas] Re: [RFI] Electric company problem

[Chris Boone]

Trust me.....DO NOT do that!!!!

I worked for an electric utility for 13 years....was the primary RFI.TVI guy
there. Hitting the pole does not work 99.9% of the time.....slapping the
down guy may cause the pole to shake...but it can also cause the wires to
swing if they have slack.....and when a 200amp line fuse blows down the
road, it is not a fun thing to hear ;)  (luckily we were at the end of the
line and only a few houses went dark) if a non employee does it, that can
make YOU liable for any damage or the outage and the costs for sending a
crew out to fix it (they WILL find a way to make you pay if they find out)

Call the power company and follow up with a letter....carbon the letter to
the state PUC/PSC if needed....then carbon to the FCC on the 3rd
time....that's all it will take....Riley has gotten BIG utilities to clean
up their problem (one that was wanted to charge the HAM for the work!!). Use
of a AM radio (SSB/CW is a good choice too) is the best way...the lower the
freq, the farther away you will pick up the noise...the common piece of gear
used by RFI folks is by Sprague....it is a wideband AM rcvr tuning from the
AM Broadcast band to 230 MHz. BUT the antenna they supply usually is
resonant around 216 MHz (TV channel 13)...which is best IF you are very
close to the source....to get a general bearing, you need to use a lower
freq like 2mt or TV channel 2-4....then triangulate the point (take bearings
from 2 or 3 points a good distance apart) then use the higher VHF freq to
find the pole....

NOTE it can be a number of poles and possible causes for the noise...after
12 years, I learned the difference "sounds" of the type of noise and found
which sound was caused by what problem. Best time to look for a bad burning
noise (LOUD Buzz rather than a mild static) is at night....that kind of
noise is usually caused by a burning arc...and at night on dry days, you
probably will find it easily looking for the flash at night on the poles ;)
One day, I may write a book on it..
Chris
WB5ITT
Sr Telecom Eng Tech
Gulf States Utilities /Entergy 1984-1996

> -----Original Message-----
> From: antennas-bounces at mailman.qth.net 
> [mailto:antennas-bounces at mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of Joe
> Sent: Sunday, December 11, 2005 8:49 AM
> To: Dan Richardson
> Cc: antennas at mailman.qth.net
> Subject: Re: [Antennas] Re: [RFI] Electric company problem
> 
> But then at the same time, if you have a non co operative 
> power company, this most times does have a temporary fix to 
> the noise.  I used to have to do that all the time,  but 
> instead of hitting the pole,,  I shook the guy wire that was 
> on the pole.
> 
> Best way I found to find the offending pole was to use a 
> multi mode, 2 meter or 70 cm rig set on cw or sideband, and 
> with a small like 3 ele beam walk the line and hunt for the 
> strongest signal.
> 
> Be prepared,  it can be a LONG way away!
> Joe WB9SBD
> 
> Dan Richardson wrote:
> 
> > At 03:43 PM 12/10/2005, Dave wrote:
> >
> >> [snip]
> >
> >> Question to all.  What is the prevailing thought about 
> hitting wooden 
> >> electric poles with a sledge hammer - as a trouble shooting tool?
> >>
> >> I think there was a recent thread about this "trouble shooting" 
>