[Elecraft] RFI and underground utilities

[Jerry T Dowell]

The mention of underground utilities reducing RFI reminded me of a personal
experience. In 1976, I bought a new home in San Diego with underground
utilities and CC&Rs prohibiting antennas. (Yeah, I know, not wise!) Despite
the antenna restrictions, I managed to work over 280 countries from that
QTH, but that is another story. I was dismayed to find out that I had severe
RFI on 40M. Noise blankers were no help. Eventually, I determined that it
was radiating from the streetlight standards, which appeared to be resonant
at 40M. Direction finding was impossible because of the plethora of
radiators. The standards radiated like a phased array...you could drive down
the streets over a 2 square block area with an RFI receiver and see the very
sharp peaks and nulls. Unfortunately, I lived near a peak. Complaints to the
FCC over the years got me a few promises and absolutely no action. All I was
able to determine was that it was probably from a burglar alarm system. A
couple of times it was off for a week....DX heaven!

Fortunately, the RFI radiated was almost totally vertically polarized, and
was not too bad on a horizontal antenna. It was still difficult to dig out
the really weak ones on horizontal antennas.

So underground utilities are not always the answer and can confound tracing
down problems.

Jerry   AI6L