Radio Frequency Interference to Amateur Radio Bands

[Browningman]

Hello in my ongoing problem with Potomac Edison and power line RFI.
I had West Virginia Public Service Commission working with me last
year in the fall they had closed my case based on a letter from Potomac Edison ? After trying to get it reopened many times I gave up and
made contact with ARRL at this point a letter was sent to Potomac Edison.
this letter got completely passed over no response from Potomac Edison.
I then made a copy of this and sent it to West Virginia Public Service Commission and the man who had come out from Potomac Edison.
Well they came out of the wood work Mr. Mcginnis who was doing
the work of finding my noise problems had not seen this letter till I
had sent it to him? It was sent to his office and his Boss! So now
we get him back out finding 2 poles making noise he puts a work order
in for ( ONE OF TWO? ) poles found then sends a letter to ARRL stating
all repairs are done? Repairs were done yes but not all repaired and
I still have RFI from ( TWO ) poles. Now I send a new e-mail about line
noise to Mr. Mcginnis and he wants to know at what level am I wiped out.
Also he go's on to say he's got no access to the RFI equipment ? Then go's
on and remarks he don't know when he'll get the equipment back I have asked
the ARRL to push this up to the FCC. As I still have S 5 to S 9 noise level.


Al / N3IZR

Your problem is that you are the only HAM that is complaining.

If you were a good ham, you would have recruited some of your friends and neighbors into the amateur radio service, you would have joined ARES and RACES and tried to participate in the nets.. Once you contact your county EC and tell them that you have a problem and cannot participate - they will contact the local government and get the wheels moving in a forward direction..

The bad thing is when a ham gets a license and then does not do anything except contest or rag chew with their buddies, because then you cannot justify your license as being a public service or any type of emergency communications.. Joining a club is the first step in the right direction - since you cannot self deploy and you cannot do anything in Ecomm's - oop's I mean Public Service by yourself..

 

[Browningman]

Hello in my ongoing problem with Potomac Edison and power line RFI.
I had West Virginia Public Service Commission working with me last
year in the fall they had closed my case based on a letter from Potomac Edison ? After trying to get it reopened many times I gave up and
made contact with ARRL at this point a letter was sent to Potomac Edison.
this letter got completely passed over no response from Potomac Edison.
I then made a copy of this and sent it to West Virginia Public Service Commission and the man who had come out from Potomac Edison.
Well they came out of the wood work Mr. Mcginnis who was doing
the work of finding my noise problems had not seen this letter till I
had sent it to him? It was sent to his office and his Boss! So now
we get him back out finding 2 poles making noise he puts a work order
in for ( ONE OF TWO? ) poles found then sends a letter to ARRL stating
all repairs are done? Repairs were done yes but not all repaired and
I still have RFI from ( TWO ) poles. Now I send a new e-mail about line
noise to Mr. Mcginnis and he wants to know at what level am I wiped out.
Also he go's on to say he's got no access to the RFI equipment ? Then go's
on and remarks he don't know when he'll get the equipment back I have asked
the ARRL to push this up to the FCC. As I still have S 5 to S 9 noise level.


Al / N3IZR

My electric company claimed the same claims as yours did, that they did not have the equipment to check for faulty equipment, and maybe the fault was in the fact that they did not have any hams in their employ and so they did not have anyone that knew how to use the equipment.
To make matters even worse - when they did come was the first day of deer rifle season in Pennsylvania - the Monday after Thanksgiving.
The electric company thought that they were going to be smart and schedule it for that day - knowing that I was going to be in the woods hunting and that they could say that they came and no one was there to assist them.

When they saw my brother standing beside me they knew they were screwed.
First - I had worked for the company as a sub contractor, second - my brother works for Siemens and repairs their switch gear - he is the head of the switchgear division for everything east of the Mississippi river!

Like I said in multiple other posts - in the end they resolved the problem...

If the problem is a cracked insulator - lightning damage is one cause of that, it is as simple as shooting it with a .22 rifle.. In deer season in Pennsylvania - I wouldn't want to predict how many insulators a year the electric companies has to replace from bullet damage..

Many times the porcelain on top of the insulator is etched and will not arc in the early morning when there is dew on the insulator, and when it rains and when there is heavy fog.

IN my case, everything was replaced when they switched the lines from copper wire to steel core aluminum clad wire...

 

[Browningman]

If you contact the ARRL they will usually refer you to one of their power line experts..

Power Line Noise

linenoise

Power Line Noise - Power Line Noise, de NØRQ

Power line noise

 

[Tallman]

I had the same problem

Well a letter was sent to Potomac Edison but I have been told they have
60 days to respond ? At this point I can not use my radio at home as the
RFI is now S7 or higher on most bands. I did contact Public Service Commission of West Virginia and was told I can not open a new case!
I think i'll get out and do a long video showing just how bad the RFI is
around here . It seems like most of the poles have a problem.

You might not be able to open a new case with them, but the FCC will listen and open a new complaint for you.

I called my electric company twice and then I told them my next call was going to be to the FCC since they were effectively jamming legal communications. They had a field supervisor out the next day and a survey was done in just a few hours. They stopped at my house and told me what they had found. Three transformers and two insulators were at fault. Inside of a month all had been replaced or repaired.

The noise that comes off of the power lines is some what like the signals that come out of the Spark Gap Transmitter of old times. Not just one frequency but a broad spectrum of hash.

 

[Browningman]

I threw away an email that my brother had wrote for me a long time ago.

It basically explained that a transformer basically has coils wrapped in paper and submerged in oil and that with time the components breaks down, or fails and the oil in the older transformers usually has PCB's in the oil to make it absorb more heat, hence when the transformer begins to fail it tends to make a loud humming noise, show's signs of failure such as missing paint, has external problems such as arcing etc...

With todays technology, the transformers will probably last 40+ years and the electric company will run them until they fail.
The worst part is that we have become reliant and dependant upon more and more electrical devices and the grid is hardly ever updated.
The calculations used to determine transformer size on a pole is almost irrelevant. The number painted at the top tells you how many KW it is rated for.
10 / 15/ 25 etc...
Depending upon how many residences are connected, the size must increase.

The electric company will tell you that the transformer almost never goes wrong and that the lightning arrester may be at fault - although most times they cannot find an issue.. They will let you pound on the pole to find loose equipment while they are there and they will climb the pole and shake the wires.

If the power company is using Broadband Over Powerlines - which is totally legal if it was established before the ban, then everything that they are doing is a rouse to entertain you and hide the actual known problem.
Eventually they will stop putting up new transformers and checking for problems and they will tell you that they have done all that they can do and that you wasted their time and money and now you are costing them money and they will find ways to make your life just as miserable as theirs!
Just as they did to me.

The ARRL is a very powerful tool, the problem being that everyone wants their help when they have a problem, but 90% of the hams out there are too cheap to join the ARRL and wants to ride on the backs of the few that does choose to pay their due's.

The FCC no longer is the major player here since they take their orders from the President of the USA, his cabinet and Homeland Security and to a lesser extent the utility companies - mainly the cell phone people..

Who ever comes up with the largest piece of the pie is going to be the one that makes all the rules and gets what they want.
The cell phone people are coming after what we have as far as microwave frequencies goes - with both barrels.

The days of amateurs being immune to interference is practically over.
In the near future the broadcasters are going to be told that the television people are going to have to give up another slice of the pie in order to be able to build first net on the 600 - 700 Mhz band

This is going to drive many terrestrial broadcast television stations off the air and many towers are going to go dark or back to the VHF where power consumption costs are much cheaper.

If you have a problem and the power company says they have resolved it or are done looking for it, you need to have more licensed hams complaining that there is a problem to get them to reopen the case.
In order to do this, you need to recruit people from your neighborhood into the Amateur Radio Service and get them licensed as a General Class or higher operator.

I try all the time to recruit new people to the hobby - since that is all that it is. The problem is that most people are tethered to their PBD - Personal Babysitting Device - aka - cell phone..
As long as we have working cell phones, there is no reason anymore for people to get involved in amateur radio and there is no reason for people to try to justify us as being the last vestige when the power goes out, the landlines are dead, and the normal lines of communications fails..

The worst part about all of this is the fact that the hams did this to themselves. They did not perform any type of service for many years and they sat around and used the amateur radio like a telephone until the telephone and internet caught up to them and passed them like a Dodge K car abandoned on the side of the road. Today no kid wants to pay thousands of dollars to buy a new transceiver and pay thousands more dollars to put up beam antennas and towers and buy amplifiers just so they can talk to some old foggie in Muskogee...

The stuff that 90% of the people does is not cutting edge technology anymore and it is hard to sell something to someone unless there is bright flashing lights and a awe about it - like the ARRL did when they did that episode on Last Man Standing..

Where did the rules go when they did that episode and where did the follow up episodes go after that one episode?
It was all a ploy to get hams to watch Last Man Standing and it had nothing to do with actual amateur radio.
And the radio that the person had in their shack was the ICOM 7600 or 7700 with lots of blue lights and things to entertain the audience.
It was nothing more than a over glorified CB radio - which was exactly the way they portrayed Amateur Radio on that episode..

I was horrified when that girl started talking without a license and made it look like you didn't need to know how to do anything or follow any rules.
What was even more comical was the fact that no man that owned equipment that good would just let it turned on all day and running with no one at the switch..

 

[C2]

I quit operating radio once my tolerance for the noise was exhausted...