[ARC5] RFI noise sources

Tue Aug 27 22:53:00 EDT 2024

 Some people have claimed that the new smart-meter power line meters have been sources of broadband interference.
WayneWB4OGM
    On Tuesday, August 27, 2024 at 11:19:03 AM MDT, Bob Groh <bob.groh at gmail.com> wrote:   

 Larry, your noise problem is Very interesting. Hope you keep us apprised of what happens. Certainly that noise level is totally unacceptable. The fact that if you kill the ac power to your house, nothing happens is a clue - it is NOT in your house but it is certainly related to the ac power feed.  I would wage a guess that is a 'leaky' or bad insulator on the ac power line in your immediate vicinity. What you might try is taking your portable radio, outdoors and going some distance away (in all directions) from your house and listening and recording the noise level. You may want to drive in your car as you might have go a couple of miles away. 
Well worth the time. Take a look at ARRL site and the web - lots on both on ac line noise sources and tales of wandering around neighborhoods wacking at power poles with a small sledge hammer. 
73 and good luck!!
Bob Groh, WA2CKY
On Mon, Aug 26, 2024 at 10:48 PM Larry Osborne <ozinret at gmail.com> wrote:

I have a similar, but worse, problem. I retired several years ago and I finally got my ham license. I haveplayed with HF since I was 12 (although I stopped transmittingillegally when I was 16 or so), and looked forward to finally beinglegal. One night I was aligning a Heathkit Mohican when suddenly thewhole shebang was overrun with noise. I figured I had done somethingstupid and went to bed figuring I'd see what I had done wrong thenext day.

But the noise was still there. MyKenwood had always shown noise at about the S3 or 4 level, which wasbad but still usable. Now the noise pinned the needle. Same thingon my vintage sets and my Sangean portable. When we had the big icestorm and the power was off the noise went back down to S3.

There doesn't seem to be a source ofthe noise; I've tried to locate it. No luck; there's no nullanywhere. It happened all of a sudden. It's power related (but thatmight mean it's caused by something being powered). I triedturning off the master circuit breaker for the house, hoping I hadsomething causing it plugged in … no dice. I've tried phasing noisecancellers, directional antennas, magnetic antennas, all sorts ofthings. Very irritating. Everything from AM broadcast to 30 mHz isuseless in my whole neighborhood.

Larry Osborne Ph.D. (Ret.)   No longer an authority on anything
| KI7UFC | 
 |

+1 808.630.8176     or via W.A.S.T.E.             

On Mon, Aug 26, 2024 at 1:28 PM Tim <timsamm at gmail.com> wrote:

Didn't want to hijack the Code Wheel  thread...However:  Interesting RFI paper Steve - Thanks...
Just for fun I just tuned my HF receiver from 7.0 to 8.0 mc.  Located in Suburbia, low halfwave dipole, noise floor at quiet freqs about S2 at 1315 Local.I counted 24 hashy, fairly broad noise sources in that band that showed above S4, there were many other weaker ones.  You can even see their presence on some remotely located SDR sites that were picked as to be "quiet".  You can watch them drift around in the waterfall tuning ranges...Probably local to the antenna.

Since I work 40 CW fairly often I find these things drift around and invariably land on that weak CW op I am trying to work. They then drift away after a minute or so.
Since our ((not)great) power utility power company fails pretty often around here I get a chance to scan the bands while the neighborhood is "out" using battery powered receivers - very quiet.  I did find a bad wall wart in my own house that way - it powered a USB gizmo.  Replaced, S9 noise gone from that one; gave it a new attitude with a ball peen hammer...

Anyway my $ 0.02Thanks, TimN6CC
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