[Elecraft] 20m CW + KPA1500 = Comcast Disconnect

[Joseph M. Durnal]

This one is going to be tough, because they aren't likely to give you the
details you would need to know.  Your post suggests that you have been
disconnected.  Get on 20 meters at legal limit all day, see if he comes
back.  If so, it is almost certainly their problem.  If not, the problem is
probably in your house somewhere.  It could be their equipment (I have
comcast for the Internet, but don't use their equipment, but most people
do), but, you'll have a hard time making the case.  Many 75 ohm wiring jobs
are just done poorly but whatever cheap contractor was doing it in your
neighborhood and you may need to do some work on it.  If it is old, just
run some good new RG6 and quality F type connectors.  You could be getting
into the cable through your home AC wiring too, so make sure that you've
choked those power cords too.  If it is still happening after all of that,
look into a high pass filter, I'm not sure if those will work these days,
you'll really have to get into the specs of your cable service for that.

I don't run legal limit but I do run my HF antenna indoors, had some
trouble with my own internet connection, but never got a visit from comcast
myself, my fix was grounding the splitter where the cable came into my
house, but I also ran some new RG6 from the splitter to the cable modem and
replaced the cheap F connectors with good ones.

73 de Joe NE3R

On Thu, Aug 6, 2020 at 5:32 PM eric norris via Elecraft <
elecraft at mailman.qth.net> wrote:

> Dear Gang:
> While looking at Europe banging in on 20m FT8 this morning, I switched
> over to CW, cruised the band, then called CQ DX for a while.  An hour
> later, a Comcast (Xfinity) technician was knocking on the door (no mask)
> claiming I was knocking out service to 600 customers (he said he had traced
> it to my house) and was disconnecting us from the network.  During the
> entire time, my wife was using a VPN network connecting to her office, and
> I had the KPA1500 connected to the router so I could use FANticipator to
> keep the KPA1500 (The Big Dog) quiet and cool.  We had no service
> interruption.
> The router has a mix 31 toroid choke (9 turns) coming out of one port, on
> a cat6 shielded  cable (all cables brand new) then has another choke before
> going into a switch--one cable going into the XYL's room with her computer,
> another cable going through another choke then going into the shack.  We
> convinced the supervisor to rehook us up.
> All during my operating time, we had no service interruption at our
> house.  This was, however, the first time I had used the KPA1500 with the
> 20m beam wich sits directly above the house--I usually only let the Big Dog
> bark in wee hours of the morning on 40 and 80m.
> My house is 65 yrs old, none of the outlets have grounds, not even the
> bathroom.  The entire kitchen is on one circuit, etc, etc.
> Before I call the Comcast supervisor, I'm hoping for some advice from the
> group.  Not letting the Big Dog bark during the daytime on 10/15/20m is
> not  a good solution.  In the meantime I'm on WSPR at 1w.  Your advice,
> please.
>
> 73, Eric WD6DBM
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