Jersey Shore Fun (NOT)
At 0730 this morning (The cable Guys) Comcast cable engineering manager &
outside plant lineman showed up to review and test for cable interference at
my QTH on 145.250 MHz. Ingress to my receiver...
With IFR, spectrum analyzer and rig all warmed up plus coffee in hand we
entered my cave (Ham Shack/Office).
Murphy was in full force: Usually I see an S7 - S9 signal on my dualband
Sat rig approx. 17 microvolts at the antenna port. This morning following
our first major down pour in many weeks (started around 0200) the
interference didn't even open the squelch on 145.250! When I shut down last
evening the sig. was around S7.
During the first 20 minutes all was pleasant as the engineering mgr. had me
tune around especially taking a look at 175.250 MHz (approx. -78dBM) with
the yagi - Not sure why he was so interested in an off the air commercial TV
signal - He did acknowledge that the down pour probably was masking the
usual interference level referring to corrosion ect.
All went pretty well with a request to call him as soon as things dried out
a bit and interference returns.
Then at the last minute he started to back pedal with comments like
wow -70dBM (The commercial TV carrier??) is really down there and this could
be coming from someone's home - "you know we can't do anything if that's the
case" - we may not be able to fix this!
My best guess is the coffee started to kick in when I shared a printed copy
of the rules & regs plus some added comments in articles from the ARRL
reference sites and requested that he take this info with him & read it. I
went on to say, if you don't fix it, my next step will be the FCC as your
system is causing severe interference to my licensed operation within the
ham bands. I suggested that he has several potential tracks - Disconnect
the offending customer if that's the cause, take channel E off line or find
the real leakage points and fix them.
73
PeterV [REN] WB3FSR
Now back to GPU - Don't you luv utilities @#$%@#%$
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Peter D. Vouvounas Ofc: 732-701-1130
McLeod USA Cell:732-674-4001
98 Meridian Dr.
Brick, NJ 08724
Mailto: wb3fsr@home.com
InterActive 2way: wb3fsr@imcingular.com
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