Power Line Noise On Your Ham Radio? How To Find AND Get it Fixed
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 2 ต.ค. 2024
- Today I walk through my multiple month journey to rid my radio environment of power line noise. This is noise coming from OUTSIDE your shack due to faulty power line equipment on the power poles that delivery residential and commerical power.
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I used to be a Telecom tech for a utility company. Tracking power line interference was my absolute favorite part of my job. We had the exact same 3 pieces of equipment that the techs that showed up to your place had. So fun to use. It was always nice to help solve a problem for a fellow ham, shortwave listener or in a lot of cases just an old guy who can't listen to his favorite AM broadcast station. Sometimes the local cable company would call us with an educated guess that we were noising up a cable plant and making people's cable internet unusable. I'd say on average, it took a week for a complaint to make it from the customer service center to the Telecom group, usually we could get out the door within the next week to locate it, and the linemen were usually about a week or 2 behind us.
That’s a pretty effective group you had. Thanks for the comment!
Hi Josh! ... good topic. So my noise issue was a while back ( several years) ... But I found this article in QST that talked about an ultrasonic detector that you could build that was effective at finding sparking type of issues on Power Lines. I took the time to build one. Essentially, it was an Ultra-sonic down converter that converted ultrasonic sounds down into the audio range. Further, it added a parabolic antenna to the front end of that ultrasonic detector, so that it was highly directional. I had wrestled with that noise for years, and it cost me several, what could be called, new countries that I might have been able to make contact with, without the noise, and made it virtually impossible to make contact with them, because of that noise. At any rate, within only a few days of having built it, I had walked the entire neighborhood and identified, not only the specific pole that the interference was coming from, but also, the specific service off of that pole going to a specific commercial business entity. I called the proper power company (it happened to be on a boundary between two power companies) and let them know, and then I finally made contact with the owner of the specific business entity and let them know they had a problem by telling them what I had found. The result was that the interference went away relatively quickly ... (within a couple of weeks). Today, I have a different issue, which appears to be a switch-mode power supply, due to its specific repetitive frequencies across the bands. Thank you for giving me some new items to look for. I hope my info is helpful for someone else.
Thank you, Josh. I am currently at a broad spectrum RFI that makes much of my HF rig inoperable. I will take these suggestions.
+start checking your own house.... try checking ballast from neon old ligths....later check power supplys of drill chargers....and phone chargers...those of base in the kitchen....lot or rfi..from yhose suckers....and try to buy an switching power supply...i sugest...TP30SWI-TEKPOWER WITH NOISE OFFSET. PERFECT POWER SUPPLY SMALL AND IT WORKS!!!!!!
Had about the same positive outcome. I got a call from a serious SWLer. He said he had noise so he could not SWL. Gave him all the ideas on checking inside his home. He called back, not in his house. I drove by his house with a ICOM 7100 and a Tarheel screwdriver antenna. Yes, he had interference. I drove down to the corner, much stronger. Turned left, went down a busy street with large power lines. Found the strongest pole, then went farther, then went 90 deg down adjoining streets. Got the pole number. Gave the SWRer the pole number and told him to call the power company and be nice and tell them the issue and the pole number. The interference was so strong, you AM radio was worthless for blocks. Told him to tell the power company that they are loosing money from lost power. The power company came out in 2 days, with 3 trucks and fixed it on the spot. KQ4KK
Wow! Impressive, Very aggravating to not be able to use radio because of the power lines.
You were smart:
"tell the power company that they are loosing money from lost power"
The power company:
"CALL 911 !!!! we are loosing money on that power pole !!! Send first responders immediately !!!!
😄😄😄😄😄
Well done! Giving the pole number is a huge benefit.
Also, by law, the power company HAS to fix the problem. You have to notify them you are a Ham, and specify it is across all bands preventing you form operating. This is a federal law issue, and I have had experience dealing with my power company. Fortunately, after I filed my complaint, the individual that was sent out was a ham as well, and he used similar equipment, but a bit more like your Yagi. He found the offending pole in 5 minutes, and a week later it was fixed.
Helps when there is a fellow ham on the the repair side.
Very cool. I'm having some noise more on a cycle. Clear receiving, then a burst of static for 15-20 seconds, then stops for 11-15 seconds and repeats. It's not in the house, because it happens in my truck too. I move away from the house and it clears. I do have a power pole in the back yard that could be suspect.
Great video! Not a HAM operator but wonder if operation hiccups with computer and general equipment is related to this kind of power line noise in affected areas. I live in around Greater Vancouver, BC with dead spots for cellular and radio networks even in open fields. It’s interesting to see someone documenting these issues.
I get a lot of noise. I live in Australia and in my suburb all the power lines are underground. Like you I turned the house off at a breaker and ran the radio from a battery and it made absolutely no difference to my noise floor. Roof top solar panels are pretty popular in Australia and I suspect all the noise I'm getting is from panel power inverters. Intrestingly I had the HF Radio on as a thunder storm started. One strike hit and we had a VERY brief power cut. Just enough to flicker the lights and set the buzzer off on my computers UPS. Interestingly all the noise on the HF bands went away completely for almost a minute. just as all the solar panel invertest started to come back online feeding energy back in to the grid the noise creeped back up.
One of my key-takeaways, that didn't appear in the summary-list, was "Don't over-inform". The reasoning behind that would be great to explore - I guess it could be called 'inter-personal psychology"? Like what is the list of reasons behind it - e.g. what negative consequences?); how prevent it - for example: (1) how to know when you're doing it (or - better - _about_ to do it); (2) pre-conversation preparation (broad e.g. bullet-point scripting? including _anti-bullet-points_ to watch (yourself) for - that should be excluded).
Great point!!!
What is that loop antenna on your 705? Custom built or purchased? I’d like to acquire or build one. Thanks for the great video.
DX Engineering NCC-2 saved the hobby for me!
Some various noise makers in the home.... We all know by now that led light bulbs can be terrible. Led stripes are also very loud. Things like fans that have that style motor. Small heaters as well. Tvs obviously. Nowadays noise makers are everywhere. Doorbells, doorbell cameras and other cameras. Including cheap wireless cameras and cheap wireless everything.
My power co-op's engineer is a friendly extra-class HAM.
if I didn't know what ham radio was, I would've thought that engineer's tasty AF
Or you could purchase the Palomar-Engineers RFI/EMI transceiver noise blocking kits. If you have an HF radio with ONE So-239 output, buy the Standard Kit. I bought one for my Icom 7300. It works great and it's only $39.95. It cut the noise into my radio by 95 percent. Huge improvement in receive quality.
They are great. But power line noise will still get through that sadly.
From 2002 to 2006 I worked in a very small Power Line Communications (PLC) company. "Wow, internet without cables. Super cool!!" I had similar random noise issues for many months on a high voltage PLC trial. I was suspecting this type of noise. So I did a training to locate these powerline noises with rfiservices . com with the specialist Mike Martins in USA. We bought the same equipment from Radar Engineers company you showed and we confirmed it was our problem. We tried to fix some old noisy isolators, but it was so many to fix. You fix one, then another one starts to bother. The noise was totally random, depending on humidity, rain, dust, hour of the day. Maybe your weather changed and you don't have the conditions for the power to leak again down to the ground. This is quite frustrating. I remember seeing a super strong noise pole once. I could hear from the RFi tools some blocks away until we find it. Well, my obvious conclusion was that it was impossible to use high voltage (or medium voltage) network for powerline communications and the company was basically closed sometime after that. hahaha. I lost my job but it was surely plenty of fun for a young Electric Engineer!
Having PL noise in my area so I opened a ticket through Baltimore Gas Electric and was contacted about two weeks later. The three poles that I directed them to were indeed in need of service. The BGE team is appreciative of my help since the equipment actually needed to be upgraded. I was told it can take some since a repair order needs to be created and placed in the queue, and also it will require road closure while the work is done. BGE has been responsive to my concerns over the years and have always resolved my RFI issues. It'll be a while with my S9 noise floor on my hex but I have confidence it will be resolved soon.
Was it ever resolved?
I had the same RFI issue was 100% sure it was coming from a transformer behind my house, my power company came out in less than a week swept the area around my house and found several issues and within 3 weeks had all the problem areas resolved which which ended up being a dozen insulators around the block I live on but didn't resolve the problem the technician came back out after he called to see if it was fixed and I replied no still have a lot of RFI so he swept the area in my back yard with his parabolic antenna and found no noise coming from the power pole in my backyard but as he was talking to me and drop the antenna the noise on his parabolic went off the scale and then went quit again. What we discovered was that it wasn't actually power line noise but it was a AT&T phone pod sitting right next to the power pole that is causing all the RFI.....after several attempts to contact AT&T with this fact and not being able to get in contact with them I built a Faraday cage and put it around it and minimized the noise a lot , but not completely
Man......... Never thought about a Faraday cage, thanks. 😂
Just rip it out of the ground and throw it away, all new shiny gear shows up within a day or two. 😂
Contact the Public Utilities Commission, that usually works.
I could imagine what went through your neighbors minds seeing you out with the yagi pointed at the power lines. Then the power company showed up pointing yagis and parabolic dishes 🤣 I'm sure at least one of them bugged out
They stopped messing with me. That’s for sure.
@@HamRadioCrashCourse they thought you were a anti-Allien Federal Task Force senior Agent. They will NEVER mess with you again😄😄😄😄😄😄
That’s why he went during the evening. Less chance if people seeing him.😂
I have a neighbor that would be in his bunker with his foil hat fastened extra-tight, for a good month if he saw that going on.
So well done as always Josh.
Not only can you have powerline noise but I have seen where a bad ground coming down a telephone pole (the only lines on this section of pole line was telephone) had a poor crimp connection to the ground wire actually going down to a ground rod or a butt ground plate at the bottom of the pole.
The crimp was repaired and the noise was eliminated.
I have a similar issue. Extremely high noise floor 90 % of the time. I keep thinking it is power line noise. I live in a small midwestern town and a few months ago the power went out in the whole town for 4 or 5 hours. I hooked my radio up to battery power and the noise stayed the same. So now I am stumped.
Aliens.
Have you looked around for a business or home with a grow light? Maybe on a generator? Those can be super noisy.
Cracked insulator or a poorly clamped jumper.
Do inverters from UPS or solar panels make a large amount of noise?
Here is my issue. I have two radios. A Yaesu FTdx101d and a receive radio, ICOM R-8600. I have two antennas. A hex beam and a inverted V dipole. For years I had only one radio with two antennas and had no noise or static unless thunderstorms were in the area and then I disconnected. In July, 2020 I started having interference on both of my radios and on both antennas. At first the static, RFI lasted only minutes then it became a few hours at different times of the day no matter the weather conditions. Then the static lasted for days and then would disappear. However now the static is constant and so overwhelming that using especially 80 meters with all of the radio filters enabled makes listening to the radios unusable. Using the radios in general is not enjoyable and almost unusable on all bands. My first test was to shut down the commercial power to my house. I brought in a 12 volt battery into the house and with the power off I connected the radios, one at a time to the battery. I had RFI, still. We had hurricane Delta come close to us earlier in Oct., 2020. The commercial power was out for over 4 hours from 0330 to 0745. My back up generator came on. I turn on the HF radios and I had NO RFI for the 2 hours I used the radios starting at 0530. As soon as the commercial power was restored and the generator shut down the RFI, terrible static once again returned. I called the power company the first of Sept. They did come out and made some test. They replaced one pole and replaced insulators or Polly's on other poles but still the RFI or static is present. The engineers came back out and did more test and found additional noise other poles. Due to the many hurricanes and storms near by, the power company has not return to address my issue and that is understandable. I send e-mails to the engineer on a weekly basis and once ever 2 weeks I may hear back from them stating they are back logged but will return to address the RFI as time and manpower is available. Not much else I can do as I am near 100% the issues is power line line problems. If by my test I am incorrect please let me know so I can continue to look for the issue. Bottom line, no commercial power in my area and into into my QTH no RFI with commercial power on in my area connected to my home overwhelming RFI. 73
I am still in the discovery phase. I went from S3 to S9 noise over the summer. Just have to find time to go scan the neighborhood. I am on solar/battery for the shack, so I can use that data to my advantage
Just a note of caution that an inverter connected to a battery may also produce significant noise. Any switching circuits found inside the inverter are likely to cause the noise. The quietest supply will be direct from battery to radio without any inversion or conditioning.
We've traced the source of the noise IT'S COMING FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE!
yeet yeet yeet yeet yeet yeet
73 de N2NLQ
I'm a Power Company tech that investigates RFI. Jake is correct call your Power company, you will be connected to the call center. The key word is interference, you don;t want the 24-7 Trouble shooter to investigate. Then a work order will be generated to the correct department. If I come out I first isolate the home of noise, then move outside. It maybe your neighbor's dimmer switch or the power lines. In my experience it's about a 50% the power lines. If I find a power line insulator making noise a work order is generated for bucket crew. I will come out with the crew and we correct the problem.
After like 6 o’clock I get this weird interference it’s like BRTTTTTT then it drops then a few seconds later it does it again and again and again! Mad annoying
Same here
@@jpkellyburbank maybe I’ll go out and look later tonight and also there’s a street light right behind my house probably 10 feet off my bedroom window but all the street lights around here are LED does that make a difference?
I contact the local communications director for our Emergency Dispatch and show him noise on their frequencies and repairs seem to move along right quick...sometimes the same day.
What screen / app is on the left side of your top monitor? Years ago had a similar issue, but also had roughly 140V coming into my client's house. That got the power company to react much faster.
Its grid tracker gridtracker.org/
Very good video about solving external
RFI, not caused by you or your home.
However, until I moved a few years ago,
being in a condo as a renter, though my
antennas for HF, simple whips, I heard
more noise at certain hours from my
antennas being outside, but the buzz
was worst received on a receiver while
in my living room of this large area apt.,
The noise seemed to come from the
floor below me, about a year after we
moved in when another neighbor moved
in, and it come on in the morning, when
they turned on what I suspect was a
plasma TV, then go off when they went
out to work, and come on again after
5 PM, coming home from work, until
at night when the TV was turned off
later. I never had a chance to ask them
if this was true, because we weren't
friendly with them. I did not interfere
with my amateur operations. W2CH.
This is a video that every ham should see. I very rarely give three thumbs up, but this video rates it. Excellent! 👍👍👍
Awesome video! I’ve been suspecting all the rfi I’ve been experiencing was caused by the power lines and now I’m convinced! It’s been getting progressively worse over the last few months to the point now that the antenna on my house I use for local contacts is pretty much unusable. My wire dipole I use for long distance contacts is further back in the yard so it’s much quieter. And the mobile, as soon as I turn down my street is deafening! I’m going to have to make some calls, and hitting the subscribe button as well.
I have had several cases of bad RFI over the years. Most of the time it was High Pressure Sodium streetlights. When they burn out, they cycle on and off, making horrible cascading interference that reaches people blocks away. In each case, a call to the local government got it solved. The lights have since been swapped out with LED, so problem solved for the long term. I had another case where an HPS parking lot light had a fried light sensor. In both cases, the RFI was a night-time phenomenon.
WOW Josh !! You have really hit a hot topic. One that has plagued me for several years. I finally build several dedicated pieces of test equipment to hunt down my noise more efficiently. One uses the dish you mentioned. It is actually an ultrasonic arc detector. For arcing in open air it is very effective. However, if the arcing is inside a fuse disconnect or or pole device, it doesn't do much. The other is a 130MHz AM receiver with a MOXON antenna which works very well. My noise seems to reduce just after a rain. My detector led to the pole transformer just behind my house. Power company came out and changed everything on the pole. Unfortunately, the noise had changed but still remained. S7 I had the lineman take my receiver up in the bucket truck with only a "rubberduck" antenna. He ran it around the high-voltage line and heard nothing. But when he got close to any ground connection on the pole, it went nuts. With the grounds interconnected to every pole in every direction it is especially hard to locate the source. All those interconnections retransmit the noise. They were not able to locate the source, so I will now need to get back out and try to triangulate, just like you described. Hope this helps others, it can be so maddening, effecting even 2M FM operations. 73 Terry W4ZQ
The noise can travel - the best approach is to use a sonic sniffer when you narrow down the area of the source. PLN is especially rich around 120MHz, BTW
WE had a noise problem where I worked that was interfering with the police repeater in our well house it was so bad that at night you could see the insulator on the pole arcing ComEd was notified and didn't even come out until three weeks later when the arc burned through the power line.
LED lights, or more accurately, their drivers are huge sources of RFI. This can be anything from a common LED light bulb to the LED backlight of your TV or computer monitor.
Get your antennas away from the house and powerlines if you can.
Great video! That's awesome that your power company sent the "A Team" in to do the analysis and ultimately corrected it.
I use an AM radio tuned to around 530 hz I have an s9 noise floor since I had Solar panels installed on my roof, the storage battery gives off an S9 static type interference, I have been putting Torids and ferrite s all over the place, disconnected from the grid and run on battery power, but no difference. I only have 40 mtr kit radio, I made a large 5 inch coil to specs I found on the internet, using RG213 and that dropped the noise floor to about s5 but the radio went deaf as well, so I am back to square one, but having a great learning experience...VK3HJW
Hi I am David KD9PDJ and I got my license by passing Tech and General on March 18th 2020 just as all this virus craziness began. I am in an apartment. I got a 7300, LDG600 tuner, Ameritron 811 into a 46 foot End Fed wire Antenna under the wood balcony deck with coffee cup hooks and started talking all around the world. 2 weeks ago I started getting a high noise situation like your video. I have to take a video and post it. I hate not being able to hear most of the HAM bands now.
Great video and right on with being nice! We had 60 over S9 power line noise on 80-40 meters that popped up at our farm. The chief engineer and a team of folks came out and investigated my problem and they went to work on it. It is not totally gone, but I am going back over there this week since they had to replace a lot of lines from Hurricane Delta and see if it is back to normal. Good job Josh! Oh, by the way, I have him interested in becoming a Ham!
Finding noise can be frustrating. I was working for a company that rented medical equipment to hospitals. At a certain day at an almost exact time, the telemetry system in the cardio unit would fail. The outage would last only about 5 minutes. After much frustration and spectrum analyzer usage we decided to think 3d. Finally we found that a worker went into a room to close out his weekly paperwork and switch on the florescent lights which had a bad ballast. This room was 3 stories directly above the cardio unit.This was in the 90s. Tech equipment has advance greatly since then. Anyway I blame this problem with my baldness.
an acquaintance of mine fixed his pole mounted transformer noise with his .30 rifle.
I know I shouldn't let those thoughts arrise at my mind, but I thought the same😄😄😄 (they would fix it in hours, rather than a lot of days😄😄😄)
With instant results
Wow did he watch the transformer oil flow down the utility pole? Hopefully the transformer does not have high PCP.🤔
Best way to find the exact pole, is to give the pole a whack with a hand sledge hammer while monitoring the noise. Have found three this way. Take the exact location and the pole number (on a metal tag usually), to the power company. It does take a long time to get it fixed, but they have a vested interest in fixing this as it wastes power, and may be a failure point. Worst case, if they are unresponsive, show them a letter you have ready to the FCC.
@wahoo0631of course you are right, sir.
😄😄😄 it's only a joke😄
It would be plain stupid to do that😄
Thanks Josh. From what I can tell from my scanning, my noise floor is the same S5 to S6 no matter where I go in the neighborhood. Blocks and blocks away it is pretty steady noise and while there is some from the power lines, it just seems to be a cacophony of noise from everywhere. I had a lot of noise when they were building the Firestation 1/2 a block from the house with various equipment. That fortunately disappeared after the construction was complete. I intend to do more scanning when I get the 705. I do not have a high noise level with 6 meters on down.
Some HTs also have air band receive which works for hunting noise.
Hey Josh, I'm experiencing a puzzling type of RFI. It's many very stable blank carrier waves, stable both in frequency and amplitude. I see this on the spectrum display of my SDR from around 500kHz, right up through HF, although, strangely it doesn't seem to affect the 20m band much at all. The spacing is exactly 8kHz, right down to an accuracy of 1Hz. These spikes don't have any modulation whatsoever and so far, I haven't been able to determine what could be emitting it. Any suggestions as to the possible cause of these regular carrier waves would be much appreciated.
P.S. During my investigation, a side bonus was that I discovered the power supply of one of my computer monitors was producing wide-banded noise, which was raising my received noise floor. The monitor is a Samsung S24D300. This has now been taken out of commission.
You must have the best electric company. Where I live they don't fix anything. Even when the fcc gets involved. It took over a year and it's only half way better. I started the process all over as they fixed one issue and this one is different. But that's what u get for an over 100 year old electric system
I had very similar issues, one day across multiple bands I had +30 noise. I sent an email to Duke Energy letting them know I had tested in my house and it didn't appear to be coming from inside my house. The next day Duke's RFI hunter called me letting me know he would come out and try to find the issue. The day after that he called me and let me know he had found the problem, a few blocks away from my house a mainline fuse was visibly arcing. Within a week everything was fixed and I was back to full quiet on UHF and VHF, and back to the normal s5 noise level on 80m. I wish my normal noise level isn't so high but I have no control over the neighbors.
Heres the weird thing.. I live in Thailand. And all main grid power supplies are 6 to 7m off the ground . They don't like To bury cables.. I am surrounded by that shit . However my noise floor usually is S1 ??? On a bad day S3 ??? Electrical storms etc.. I am guessing Micro waves are the culprit. UHFW will fuck up everything !! 4G and 5G ..Just my take..
Neighborhood solar panels with out chokes installed on them makes RF noise too ! Big problem around NJ.
Woah! Thanks for referencing my video! Glad it was helpful.
Yeah man! Nicely done!
That's when you know your living in a 1st world country. Try getting any service at all in France! Unless you pay them they ain't coming out and thy certainly won;t be bringing any radio equipment.
I have more problems on 80 meters almost unworkable. 40 is half as bad. 20 is reasonably quiet. And so on as the frequency increases.
Hey Josh very informative, my problem is 12volt related in my truck. Getting interference when I turn on keyed accessory, I get a noise on my 2 meter radio ,sounds like someone trying to break squelch and it is sporadic on 146.835 and 147.165 frequency. This only happens when I turn the key on accessory or running the engine.
I'm making a log of start and end times for what does seem like power line noise by the frequency of the audio on AM. The strange thing is it isn't constant. It appears randomly but more often in the evenings. Could this be because of higher current draw through the point of failure at peak electricity consumption times? Measuring on Google maps, My EFHW is only about 90 metres from the power lines running across the field next to us. Thankfully it often only lasts 10 minutes. It's just tonight it has been heard for over a constant hour.
1. You can use FM but if you can use AM, that would be better.
2. Take a rubber mallet with you and tap the suspected poles while listening and listen for the noise pattern to change with the vibration.
3. I don't know exactly what the neighborhood voltages are but somewhere in the 15kV range. Those are going to be the typical suspects.
4. The lines much greater than 100kV can emit noise for like a mile pretty badly. These are more difficult to isolate and figure out where the problem is originating from. Again, a mallet can help you determine the pole or poles.
Be patient with the power company. They want the problem fixed as well.
Power company most likely _depends_ on general folk reporting such issues, thereby providing it with early-warnings of potential future equipment failure. Much cheaper to fix/maintain/replace as part of a routine schedule than to emergency-repair, especially for expensive items.
Hi KD2VHJ here I have the same issue here in Schenectady NY . I called my electric company National Grid and they said they fixed several arcs, but the noise is still there. The tech pointed the YAGI at my neighbor's house and said it was coming from them. The only thing i could think of that would wipe me from the AM broadcast band to above 6 meters if the House was not grounded. Any input would be helpful.
Where can I find that FCC 60 day requirement to fix the problem? I need a copy to present to my power company in an ongoing RFI problem at my QTH. Thanks de N4IQV
My reception here at home is really not that good, but in the 23452 area it's very good on short wave according to a recent video I posted. The LW band is useless unless I take the radio outside of the apartment and I am able to get some NDB's like on 254 kHz which is beacon LLW from Elizabeth City, NC, but if I try to listen to it indoors in my apartment it gets difficult to receive. I don't if it's power line noise or just power supply noise, because these switching mode power supplies can wreck havoc on the long wave bands here at home.
I've heard of similar stories where the power company tech was a ham as well and the details the reporting ham gave them lead right to the pole. I had one issue in my neighborhood where the noise was audible by the human ear from a block away. Giving the pole number helped SCE get someone out within a couple of hours to fix it, but that's a different case. Glad you got your issue resolved. I've used my FT60 and a yagi on 70cm for hunting powerline noise. I have lots of lines in my area, including right through my yard and supplying power to my house via a line. Thankfully most of the lines and the boxes have been replaced within the last two years. That's one bonus of being in a wildfire prone area, I guess.
Josh not sure if your still following this but the past 3 day I have come across this same issue the radio is unstable due to +7/8 of noise on all the HF bands up to 30mhz I have been out with the SDR and I think I have found the issue on a local step down transformer located off my property. I have emailed the local supply company and am now awaiting a reply M7CVK 73 Tony
Nearby professional communications tower (e.g. at 11:08 in the video) might also have been suffering some consequence from this interference.
Strong RFI on my HF radio which has sent me searching for answers, I contacted my elecricity company and sent a short video of the RFI about a month ago and they didn't respond, so it looks like we have todo the foot work for them and identify the exact location and paint an X on the post. I played the noise to my XYL and she said it sounds like a 2 stroke Kawasaki motobike. Might be "Grow Room" nearby.
"I contacted Edison"
me - a non US citizen: "I wish I too has a buddy working in a power company"
"SC Edison is the name of the power company"
me: "oh...."
Sorry have not subscribed before, ran into you at Hamcation a few weeks back, thought you were from Florida. Having the same issue with noise, mainly at night, so thinking it is coming from my house, will use your tips to investigate. I have two 10 meter antennas, one in the attic and one I just put up outside. Attic dipole rigged up for computer sdr and hurricane proof. Outside vertical for DX that is fairly new. Seems the attic antenna has a lot more noise, going to track it down using your advise.
If there is one good thing about power line noise is real power line noise will be handled and fixed typically. The worst kind of RFI is when it's in neighbors bad lighting or battery charger or some other device and if they don't want to cooperate you're kind of Sol
The bloke next door took 100ft of ac power cord around a florsesent fixture in his garage.the came out abt 20 times they placed a notice they were there i was finally they found me and when they arrived my next door bloke arrived he opened his g door and edison found his cludge.that was 30 years ago..He also stole cable tv 73 kg6mn My he rotttttt in helll
We had problems with noise on the telephone every 4 or 6 months. It turned out to be the squirrels chewing in the exposed wiring that wasn't properly covered! IMO, rain wasn't helping either.
I have an AM transmitter on my house about 15-20 feet up. I have power lines around my house (not close enough to the antenna to be a safety issue). The transmitter I bought was advertised to reach 1-2 miles and I can barely hear it inside the house. The volume is quiet and there is a hum. Is it the power lines or do I just not have it tuned well?
Congratulations. I was hoping that they would use an ultrasonic noise detector and was glad to hear you say that they used a parabolic dish. That dish and its ultrasonic detector will pick up the "hiss" of the electrical arc in the somewhat loose connection clamp(s). The arcing sprays a signal much like a leak in a tire and the noise is in the ultrasonic sound band that humans can't hear. Unfortunately, an ultrasonic receiver and the dish can cost in the neighborhood of $3,000, which is an amount that most small utility companies won't spend on a rarely-used piece of test equipment as compared to buying a Fluke volt/amp scope multi-meter. In my career as an electric utility power engineer, I found such equipment to be rentable, if the company had a serious desire to fix their troubles. 73
Wait until one of your neighbors installs an outside LED Security light on a pole.
In that case the LED light itself will need to be replaced even if it's brand new.
I have the tall towers with the very high voltage transmission lines on my property border. I, not sure how this affects my radio antennas'. For example, will the antenna be better positioned parallel to the lines or at an angle to the lines. I have a vertical 2 meter antenna and a horizontal 1/2 wave dipole. Any help would be appreciated.
There is at least 1 ham, (an RF engineer,) whose noise story I read online several years ago. He designed an inexpensive low-frequency receiver and a loop antenna system to locate power-line noise problems. He would go around to the power-poles with it, identify the problem pole, then smack the pole with a baseball bat to verify that that was the pole that was causing the noise. (The bat trick often works even if you're just using an HT while smacking all the power-poles in the neighborhood. But it leaves the neighbors thinking you're batty.) Then he would call the power company. About the 4th call he made about a specific pole problem they just got the location info and started coming out to fix it without wasting their time playing noise foxhunter. He was doing that job for free, and he knew more than they did.
Is there a go to meter to find these interferences? thanks!
I highly doubt my rural electric company would do anything to help me out. Interesting to know that they have to comply with FCC regulations though. I don't have power line issues like you do but as you showed the TV making noise how do you fix that except for turning it off?
I have a washing machine and a DVD player that make horrible interference on my HF rig. If I were to contact the manufacturers of these items could the FCC force them to comply with FCC Part 15? I will be nice. I have also noticed that if I use a desktop computer in my shack it makes noise where a laptop computer doesn't. Buy a truck load of ferrite beads and toroids?
@bob Murton I am old enough to witness the introduction of small AM transistor radios but boy have pocket radios evolved, eh? (Multi-band with SSB) Can you still buy a pocket AM transistor radio?
@bob Murton Thanks!
@bob Murton Thanks!
THE guy down the street was growing pot his lamps when on at 1800 hrs that lasted 6 mo then stoped the street was basically a 80 mtr diapole antenna 73 kg6mn
I have an issue driving me crazy every nite at 8 PM until around 6AM I have a noise issue I know its not in my house . I have traced it directionally with my flatside element beam to my north and easterly direction.On my vertical its there also . Iam thinking its gotta to be an alarm system or lighting since its the same time every night . This only started a few months ago Any ideas on what I can do to eliminate it .
80 meters is the worst for me , On my 7300 the scope shows to peaks about 20 khz apart they move from right to left across the screen when you go on the peaks i 20 over s9 noise.?
can you not call FCC to solve external interference in America? You do pay license fees for Ham do you?
I'll add my plan is a yagi with my scope as well as binoculars and a phone with a flir camera. Not sure if that last one will help. But it's worth a shot.
Great video Josh, I hope I never have to deal with power line noise. One of the nice things about living in the country is POTA levels of noise. One time I thought the receiver in my 891 was broken because I had no S Meter readings, like the bar was completely gone. Turns out I just had 0 noise lol. Good for DX since I don't have a beam antenna for HF yet. 73 de W8IJC
There’s a power line outside my window 😑😑
I need help with noise from my Chinese inverter
Well done Josh. I enjoy watching your videos as you explain things very well. Keep going with your great work. From ZL1MTO - Marcelo
I did the same thing with my yagi and a handi talkie. Had several people look at me funny and ask me what i was doing. lol
How do I know what frequencies to scan for powerline noise?
I live in RF hell !
Hey Josh....I had the same issued living in the city and they came out and had to replace ceramic insulators on a pole right outside my house that was causing problems.
If you have trouble getting through to someone who understands you at the power company, every state (US) has something called the public utilities commission or public service commission (PUC, PSC), etc. A call to them will usually get someone higher up the chain to call you back.
They handle complaints about utilities and have a back door to the higher tiers. When the utility companies get a call from the PSC they act on it right away.
I used to use them for solving phone company problems and the results were amazing.
That's the way to go😄👍.
When you call the right guy, things will be fixed really quick😄😄😄.
Years ago, I've checked that a friend's apartament block didn't have the original analog (at the time) external community TV antenna (obligatory by law, in Portugal).
So, she couldn't watch TV, except if making a payed contract with a cable company (wich had the original antenna disconnected)
I've told her it was not legal to do that.
Than she told me she would call her brother in Lisbon.
And who was her brother ?! The FCC Director !!!!!! (well...it is not FCC. In Portugal it is ANACOM).
You should see a three engenier team rushing from main Office in Lisbon to fix the problem:
Direct connection to their network, no charge, lots of appologies 😄😄😄😄😄😄😄😄.
It was cheaper for them than reconnecting to the TV antenna 😄😄😄😄.
Thanks for the video do u get Fri from. Fm radio broadcast
Not all noise comes from the power company. It can come from the telephone company because of a bad ground connection on one of their poles.
Not sure I'm ready to commit to that subscribe button yet.
Been experiencing annoying AC hum RFI from transformers in my apartment with my SDR, it's really bad on the SW, HF, and MW/AM bands on my SDR. I've been using the MLA30+ to pick up SW radio, and the issue is that the window seat where I get the best signals is also pointing towards a transformer from the building across the complex, but it isn't as bad as the one at my building. It's very annoying, but I probably have to play around with the direction I point the antenna. The things I do just to hear the dulcet tones of WWV's signal and getting the chance to stumble across HF transmissions, and hear JT65. lol
I also have a musical ear as well, and AC hum has a distinctive tone that is close to a low Bb on a piano or synthesizer. :)
Would that type of Yagi antenna work for picking up TV signals? I tried getting another basic antenna for the TV set and it picked up only 3 stations, even though it claimed it would be able to pick up farther away TV signals.
I'm thinking I have some kind of electrical or line noise myself. I have the 7300, and your waterfall looked all too familiar to me. My noise is on 160-80-40 mostly. It "pulses" and is completely broadband. When the noise is there, it's all across the band. But it goes away for some split seconds or seconds. I live in a semi-rural area; most neighbors have 5 acre plots. And fortunately my house is in the middle of our land, set back very far from the street (where most of the houses are up close to). I'm still investigating the source. Installed a LOT of type 31/43 ferrite beads and toroids -- still no help. Thanks! de N3AZ P.S. I have a Yaesu FT-818, purchased for QRP/portable but also to track down this problem! It is all-mode. I just need a good portable antenna for this purpose.
Try a 2 turn electrostatically shielded loop. It's a manageable size and bidirectional, which is good enough to use for direction finding. A portable AM band radio is more portable and also bidirectional.
Who you gonna call ☎️. 👻 busters 😅
Glad it was fixed. 💯 On the be nice part.
What loop antenna is that connected to the 705?
Arrow dfing loop.
I was going to ask the same question. Good thing I read all the comments first.
ham radio crash course - Which portable yagi are you using for your Yeasu FT-3dr.... I believe you said an arrow yagi... thanks
Yes. That is correct.