RFI -- The search continues

[SuperLid]

That's Ok, all of your info is very applicable today. Keep it coming.

- J.J. 399

Thanks guys. I feel dumb that I went to the trouble of looking at this, for someone that will most likely never see it. Maybe a new area in the forum dedicated to RFI would be a good thing. It is very common these days and requires experience and patience. I have the former, not so much the latter, but I like to share and help others if I can.

 

[Mudfoot]

I had a horrible RFI experience few years back. My issue was powerline noise. Luckily, my local AEP's RFI mitigator, was a ham. He was trained by Gene Preston, K5GP. Gene was a retired electric utility engineer. He trained many utility employees in sniffing out RFI.

The grid in my little town was ancient. My AEP dude came out and fixed a few things, but the local supervisor hated sending out linemen for noise complaints, so they stopped. Undeterred, my AEP dude contacted AEP's Vice President in Columbus, Ohio. Lol, that dude was also a ham. He told the local supervisor to FIX my issue.

This process took a over a year with many visits, but I finally went from solid S9 to a tolerable level. They upgraded most of the lines in our Village.

I've since moved to a small town. We have our own co-op. They don't have any RFI equipment, but if I track it down, they'll fix it for me.

Sadly, most hams aren't so lucky. RFI sucks and it's only getting worse.

​

 

[SuperLid]

I had a horrible RFI experience few years back. My issue was powerline noise. Luckily, my local AEP's RFI mitigator, was a ham. He was trained by Gene Preston, K5GP. Gene was a retired electric utility engineer. He trained many utility employees in sniffing out RFI.

The grid in my little town was ancient. My AEP dude came out and fixed a few things, but the local supervisor hated sending out linemen for noise complaints, so they stopped. Undeterred, my AEP dude contacted AEP's Vice President in Columbus, Ohio. Lol, that dude was also a ham. He told the local supervisor to FIX my issue.

This process took a over a year with many visits, but I finally went from solid S9 to a tolerable level. They upgraded most of the lines in our Village.

I've since moved to a small town. We have our own co-op. They don't have any RFI equipment, but if I track it down, they'll fix it for me.

Sadly, most hams aren't so lucky. RFI sucks and it's only getting worse.

​

I also had power line RFI here and the utility was pushing back on repairs, just to be obstinate. They kept throwing money at poles that were not the problem and hiring a company that had no RFI mitigation experience, just to tell the FCC that they did this and that, to appease them. Laura Smith has no experience and relies on ARRL.

It took 2 1/2 years an two in person visits from Steve Anderson, who was very green at the time, to confirm my findings on a few specific poles. No one I dealt with, would believe that I had the expertise to track RFI, even though, I had done this as part of my work life for a long time. I had to prove everything. I was second guessed, told it was not power line etc.

On Steve's second visit, he pointed his Radar Engineers parabolic microphone at a pole I identified that blew his mind. It was over a mile from my house and super strong. Steve said, Ed Hare had a rule, that the sources were always less than a mile away. This was incorrect and Steve was shocked, saying this blew Ed's rule out of the water. These guys that think they know it all don't. But, they want you to believe that they do. So, you have to work hard to get results in too many cases. This work requires tools that cost real money, time, experience and a lot of patience.

If the ARRL was not less than two hours drive from me, I doubt this would have been fixed. I was even told after struggling with this for 6 months after I got ARRL involved, he would come out, simply to justify his job.

RFI mitigation is not a simple fix in most cases, due to the large number of potential sources. So, the best place to start, is by identifying the source type. You would not want to spend weeks driving around looking for a pole source, when it is a battery charger down the street.

73,

SuperLid