I've sold out

[X-Rated]

I sold my only working HF rig. Too damned much noise. I have been after the power company for 11 years to reduce the noise in the neighborhood and they won't even phone me back to tell me to go to hell.

I have a 2m/440 antenna up and will continue on with UHF/VHF. Noise is not nearly that bad on those bands, but I still detect it there as well.

I plan to escalate this to the state and to the feds as well. Someday, if they ever fix the noise problem, I will get another HF rig and go back to enjoying HF contacts. Until then, I have signed off.

[KG4CGC]

I'm sorry.

[X-Rated]

Thanks Charles. All I get is the AC buzz from the power lines. I will never move to another neighborhood with above ground power lines again.

[KG4CGC]

I believe there is more to it that just being above ground. One dirty jumper and it will broadcast upon thousands of miles of wire.

[WA4TM]

It really sucks when a man can't even get a proper "Go to hell":lol: Sorry for your loss....


I sold my only working HF rig. Too damned much noise. I have been after the power company for 11 years to reduce the noise in the neighborhood and they won't even phone me back to tell me to go to hell.

I have a 2m/440 antenna up and will continue on with UHF/VHF. Noise is not nearly that bad on those bands, but I still detect it there as well.

I plan to escalate this to the state and to the feds as well. Someday, if they ever fix the noise problem, I will get another HF rig and go back to enjoying HF contacts. Until then, I have signed off.

[X-Rated]

I believe there is more to it that just being above ground. One dirty jumper and it will broadcast upon thousands of miles of wire.

Even if I was a mile away from the source, I would live with it. Much of the power of the noise is in the audio portion of the spectrum. So maybe a few watts in the harmonics at HF. Spread that out over the range of 1.8 to 30 MHz, and there is not a whole lot there at one frequency. But I was putting up with S9 noise popping in and out. horrendous noise. It just goes yang yang yang.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozzp4RW5G54

This is what it looks like and somewhat sounds like.

[W5IEI]

That sux,sorry to hear that.
Hopefully it will be resolved.

[KJ3N]

Thanks Charles. All I get is the AC buzz from the power lines. I will never move to another neighborhood with above ground power lines again.

Sorry, but it's got very little to do with above ground power lines. I'm 500 feet from 17KV and 34KV lines and I have no AC buzz of any kind from 40m thru 10m. There might be some on 75m or 160m, but that's covered up by all the rest of the ambient noise common on those 2 bands in a suburban environment.

This probably has everything to do with a power company that either doesn't know WTF it's doing, or simply doesn't care. Move to Delaware. Our power company knows WTF it's doing. I should know; I've dealt with them at least 4 times over the last 10 years. I've never had a problem that I've reported go more than 4 months without resolution.

Out of curiosity, what steps have you taken to locate the source?

[ab1ga]

...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozzp4RW5G54

This is what it looks like and somewhat sounds like.


Could you explain what we're looking at in each trace and maybe how you sampled the signals?

The sinusoid looks like it's flat-topping, which could indicate transformer core saturation. Since this can cause excess heat and early transformer failure, your power company might be more responsive if you mentioned it to them.

The impulse noise also interesting. The impulses are evenly spaced, and appear only around the peaks of the sinusoids where the flat-topping occurs.

Have you considered that the source of this noise is inside your building?

Good luck finding the trouble,

[X-Rated]

Sorry, but it's got very little to do with above ground power lines. I'm 500 feet from 17KV and 34KV lines and I have no AC buzz of any kind from 40m thru 10m. There might be some on 75m or 160m, but that's covered up by all the rest of the ambient noise common on those 2 bands in a suburban environment.

This probably has everything to do with a power company that either doesn't know WTF it's doing, or simply doesn't care. Move to Delaware. Our power company knows WTF it's doing. I should know; I've dealt with them at least 4 times over the last 10 years. I've never had a problem that I've reported go more than 4 months without resolution.

Out of curiosity, what steps have you taken to locate the source?

Yeah. I didn't say above ground power lines were synonymous with power line noise, but people tell me that they don't have trouble with below ground power line noise.

I have been calling once a month to see how they are progressing. They refuse to give me the name of an engineer there to work with, but they lie and say one will call.

I have called. I have sent letters. I have tried to send PM's on their website. Nothing.

I take my VX-5R and put it on AM receive and I can tap on power poles and I can hear the noise being aggravated by the added jostle. So, maybe I am really not getting it, but I assumed the noise was probably being generated on the poles that respond to some bumping. But the noise is easily heard right next to the poles on VHF-AM.

As the months roll on, there are more poles that seem to be generating noise. Maybe it is one pole transmitting the noise to other poles, I don't know. What I do know is that it is aggravating and I am really tired of this.

I have never lived in a neighborhood with below ground power lines, and I have never lived anywhere that had this bad of noise. So I had no doubt that above ground power lines are not synonymous with power line noise. I am just tired of power line noise.


Could you explain what we're looking at in each trace and maybe how you sampled the signals?

The sinusoid looks like it's flat-topping, which could indicate transformer core saturation. Since this can cause excess heat and early transformer failure, your power company might be more responsive if you mentioned it to them.

The impulse noise also interesting. The impulses are evenly spaced, and appear only around the peaks of the sinusoids where the flat-topping occurs.

Have you considered that the source of this noise is inside your building?

Good luck finding the trouble,

I pulled this video off of the Youtubes. I am certain that the sinewave is something the user was using to show the correlation between the spikes and the 60 Hz sinewave. So yes we see the sparks happening at the higher and lower peaks. That is where the insulation breaks down. The spikes are rich in harmonics and that is where the power comes from that bothers the radio. It may be in my building as well, but I have a lot of noise from the power poles I have tracked down. I am experiencing S9 noise. If the power company can stop the noise in their poles, maybe I can troubleshoot problems in my own house. I think the lines in the back yard are 17kV lines. That would be 24kV peaks on the insulators. I don't know if the cores are saturating or not.

[N2CHX]

If you know a local broadcast engineer, the power company will be much more responsive if they hear from them. Of course, this assumes that the noise is also swamping the AM BCB, which it most likely is.

[X-Rated]

If you know a local broadcast engineer, the power company will be much more responsive if they hear from them. Of course, this assumes that the noise is also swamping the AM BCB, which it most likely is.

Back in the day, broadcasters knew me. The GM of my hometown radio station still knows me. I can try to get some broadcasters to do something. That is a good point.

[n2ize]

You've got to fight it. Sometimes you've got to raise hell to get these damned power companies to do anything. Contacting your local broadcaster is a good start. Keep hounding that power company. Contact the FCC, the ARRL, other hams in the area, anyone who might be able to help and keep after them. Otherwise it will only get worst and before long you'll be relegated to 10 Ghz. Are you getting any of this QRM on the broadcast band ? Contact your nearby radio stations and inform their engineers that you cannot enjoy listening because of the incredible level pf power line noise. Notofy the FCC that the power company is interfering with broiadcast reception and ham radio and that the power company has thus far refused to do anything..

BTW I have considerable noise here as well but most of it is coming right from the house. All the computers, electronics, etc. causes problems on HF right on through VHF. In particular a couple of ethernet switches that spew out noise all over the damned place. The noise is generated by the switch itself (not the power supply) and the ethernet cables act as incidental radiators. I am seriously thinking of switching the network over to 100% wireless and deactivating the wired network altogether.

[X-Rated]

You've got to fight it. Sometimes you've got to raise hell to get these damned power companies to do anything. Contacting your local broadcaster is a good start. Keep hounding that power company. Contact the FCC, the ARRL, other hams in the area, anyone who might be able to help and keep after them. Otherwise it will only get worst and before long you'll be relegated to 10 Ghz. Are you getting any of this QRM on the broadcast band ? Contact your nearby radio stations and inform their engineers that you cannot enjoy listening because of the incredible level pf power line noise. Notofy the FCC that the power company is interfering with broiadcast reception and ham radio and that the power company has thus far refused to do anything..

BTW I have considerable noise here as well but most of it is coming right from the house. All the computers, electronics, etc. causes problems on HF right on through VHF. In particular a couple of ethernet switches that spew out noise all over the damned place. The noise is generated by the switch itself (not the power supply) and the ethernet cables act as incidental radiators. I am seriously thinking of switching the network over to 100% wireless and deactivating the wired network altogether.

I will be switching to 4g soon as well. But shutting down my internet does not improve my noise problem.

Out of the blue, ComEd called me a few minutes ago. They will be sending out a person to look at the problem within a few hours. This took years to get to this point and for me to finally give up on the whole process. I doubt they will get it fixed, but it is nice they finally decided to at least call and say hi.

[KG4CGC]

I will be switching to 4g soon as well. But shutting down my internet does not improve my noise problem.

Out of the blue, ComEd called me a few minutes ago. They will be sending out a person to look at the problem within a few hours. This took years to get to this point and for me to finally give up on the whole process. I doubt they will get it fixed, but it is nice they finally decided to at least call and say hi.
I'd be careful. Now you know they're watching you. You have become a person of interest.

[w0aew]

Maybe it is one pole transmitting the noise to other poles, I don't know.

You might also consider moving further from SP land.

[X-Rated]

You might also consider moving further from SP land.

http://www.nailtechsupply.com/cart/images/nts/ez%20rainforest%20polish%20remover.jpg

[X-Rated]

They just called back and said yes they did find insulators needing to be replaced. They will hop right on that in 14 weeks.

I am elated. Maybe in 4 months, I can get back onto HF. This is some exciting $hit.

[KG4CGC]

Very good. What will you use to monitor their progress, RF wise?

[X-Rated]

Very good. What will you use to monitor their progress, RF wise?

http://www.qsl.net/kb7rgg/radio/hq-215/images/hq215-front.jpg

I also have an IC-208H now and it receives air band. I can hear that crap easily on there. I have an FT-840 I am rebuilding. It receives fine. Of course, I have a VX-5R and a portable dipole to go with that.

[NQ6U]

http://www.qsl.net/kb7rgg/radio/hq-215/images/hq215-front.jpg


Nifty-looking radio. The labeling on the band switch is a little confusing, though.

[X-Rated]

Nifty-looking radio. The labeling on the band switch is a little confusing, though.

Yeah it sure is. I bought mine in 1979 right after passing my extra class exam. It is really nice for an old analog receiver.

Anyway, many of the bands on there are self explanatory. Each band is 200kHz wide. There is a bank of crystals in the rig to define the band. I think the frequency offset is supposed to be 3.155MHz plus the lowest frequency you want to receive. So if you want to receive 10.000 to 10.200 MHz, you get a crystal at 13.155MHz and pop it into the proper slot.

When I got the thing, a friend of mine wanted to put it on a bench and test it. He dialed up a QSO on 75M with an IFR AM/FM1000 and then pulled the antenna to put on the receiver. I calibrated the dial and set the frequency and it was right on the QSO he dialed up with his 0.1ppm timebase. He was impressed and I wasn't too complacent about it.

But I doubt I will ever get rid of this one. It is hard to beat. It uses Collins mechanical filters as well. They are pretty nice. 6kHz, 2.4 kHz and 500 Hz.

[KA5PIU]

Hello.

I have a Hammarlund.
http://www.universal-radio.com/catalog/commrxvr/hq105tr.html
When I got it, both the meter and clock were missing parts, as in broken, and looked as bad as this one.
http://www.universal-radio.com/used/sold013.html
It was a junk box special but has all the tubes.
Now it has a modern frequency counter/clock where the clock was and a PLL02a based board for the transmitter.
Remember, this was build in the day when you could legally build a CB radio from a kit and there were 23 channels.
Now? as long as it is a 5kHz spacing anything from just below the AM BCB to 32MHz is fair game. ;)
This can be AM, FM, or both at the same time.
I have used it on 28.385MHz for years on SSBRC.
Yes, it is a nice 2 tone blue, the very first non military radio I did this to.
Knobs are all from some old car, the originals ones were broken and missing.
I bring this up as something like this can be your project, it took me 4 months to get it to where it is now, working but anything but original.
Have fun and hopefully everything will work out for you.
73

[X-Rated]

No tubes in my Hammarlund. Totally solid state. No clock in it either.

[NA4BH]

You didn't get the one made for "Special OP's" and "Double Naught Spies".

[W3WN]

http://www.qsl.net/kb7rgg/radio/hq-215/images/hq215-front.jpg

I also have an IC-208H now and it receives air band. I can hear that crap easily on there. I have an FT-840 I am rebuilding. It receives fine. Of course, I have a VX-5R and a portable dipole to go with that.
http://www.universal-radio.com/catalog/commrxvr/hq215.html
http://www.qsl.net/kb7rgg/radio/hq215.html
http://rigreference.com/rig/2852-Hammarlund_HQ_215
http://www.oldradios.co.nz/my/receivers/hammarlund/about.htm
http://www.radioing.com/museum/rx4.html

[X-Rated]

http://www.universal-radio.com/catalog/commrxvr/hq215.html
http://www.qsl.net/kb7rgg/radio/hq215.html
http://rigreference.com/rig/2852-Hammarlund_HQ_215
http://www.oldradios.co.nz/my/receivers/hammarlund/about.htm
http://www.radioing.com/museum/rx4.html

I like the article that says the performance was "lackluster". LMAO. mine works very well and allows more options than a typical receiver.

[KA5PIU]

You didn't get the one made for "Special OP's" and "Double Naught Spies".

Hello.

I buy the "Cheap bastage" models.
I found this at some sale, something like $20 and I jewed them down to half of that.
It looked like chit, Man/Female split up type of thing.
The original transmitter was a 2 tube affair fed by a crystal, everything is still in place except some of the wiring.
This is now an all solid state transmitter with a second receiver.
The primary receiver was chit, just not that good.
The original VFO is in place and works fine, considering the vintage.
But select the solid state unit and it is 100% stable and can also do FM.
The power supply has been worked over but tubes are just noisy.
By noisy I mean the thermal noise that tubes produce.
There was a very common mode in this things era to put in Nuvistor tubes.
I pulled that out and put in FET devices.
The audio section might as well have been inside a telephone how meager it is.
Now there is the high side that is the original tube circuit with an equal transistor side, forming a push pull circuit, except the transistor side, something out of a GM car radio, puts out at least 5 times the audio.
While I was at the junk yard I picked up on some knobs and the like.
Remember, this was a high school project of low priority.
It never worked well in its intended role, I used a Motorola transistor dispatcher radio on 49MHz for that, another something that got worked over and painted blue.
But these were simple projects in an era when car telephones were super rare and 27MHz was the norm for portable communications, one mile was about it.

[KG4CGC]

something like $20 and I jewed them down to half of that.
You did what?

[X-Rated]

You did what?

Rudy For the WN.

[WV6Z]

Sorry to hear that Jerry. A large number of hammies within a 200 mile radius are plagued by dirty AC issues, mainly attributable to poorly maintained 'stuff' owned and operated through small community and rural co-ops. Hard to believe this never seems to end.

[WV6Z]

Rudy For the WN.

IBTSS

[WA4TM]

4004


IBTSS

[X-Rated]

Thanks for your concerns Tom. You know how bad it was in our QSO. I had a terrible time hearing your S7 signals here. That was when the noise was S5 and now it is S9. I haven't known how to fight any of this. I could only live with it. It gets old trying to hear stateside and not making it. I know in contests, I could not hear stations that others nearby were working. That is frustrating. No amount of leenyar power amps will help that out.

[suddenseer]

I hope they fix he noise issues you have been suffering. On a side note, I noticed the 6 meter noise threshold really dropped when the analog tv signals were silenced.

[X-Rated]

I hope they fix he noise issues you have been suffering. On a side note, I noticed the 6 meter noise threshold really dropped when the analog tv signals were silenced.

6 meters is nowhere close to any TV stations anymore. I think I read Channel 2 has been moved to channel 12.

[n2ize]

You did what?

He Arab'ed them down.

[X-Rated]

He Arab'ed them down.

John For the PIU!

[KG4CGC]

He Arab'ed them down.
Then why didn't he just say, I "ussed" them down? That's like us with the d sound at the end.