Thanks for all the great replies to my questions. There was a lot of good
information and suggestions that will be very useful to me.
The neighbor will have to cooperate in order for me to do anything further. I'm
going to take Ed W1RFI's advice, and print out some appropriate material from
the internet to give him. I won't invite the neighbor in to see my shack though.
This guy's own apartment is a mess. He sleeps on the floor on a filthy old
mattress, in the same room as the computer that is always turned on. The
computer itself looks like it came from a junk yard, and next to it is a
cardboard box filled to about 6 inches with ash and cigarette butts. I guess
that's his ash tray. I wouldn't be surprised if he's a heavy drug user too. None
of this is really relevant to the problem, but I don't want him seeing the
valuables in my home and maybe getting funny ideas.
I'm going to try my best to get the neighbor to understand the situation and get
him to cooperate. As it is, he doesn't seem to believe me when I tell him that
the problem is at his end, and I am trying to help him solve HIS problem. I can
understand this. Most people don't expect to have interference from a 2-way
radio on their TV or computer. If there is, they think the problem must surely
be with the radio, because it is the source of the interference. They don't know
anything about inadequate filtering on their TV or computer.
I'm going to buy some more ferrite cores to try and deal with the
computer-speaker problem, and then deal with phone and TV as is needed. As for
the TV, I didn't personally see what kind of interference I was causing. My
landlord (also a ham, thank God) was watching the set while I transmitted from
my place. I'll have to look into this some more. Incidentally, my landlord's 3
watt H-T for 2 meters also came through very loud on the computer speakers while
he was there.
I'm going to disconnect the ground wire I hooked up to the computer. It's a good
ground, connected with the main ground in the basement, but it's not helping to
solve the problem, and I don't want to be responsible for any accidents that
might result from it.
My HF rig (a TS-940S) has a built-in low pass filter, but added I second-hand
external low pass filter several days ago. It doesn't help, but it's there for
the FCC to see if they should come here.
I am in compliance with the FCC RF safety requirements. I checked into this a
few weeks ago on this web site - http://n5xu.ae.utexas.edu/rfsafety/ based on a
distance of 15 feet to the antenna, and 100 watts output on CW & SSB. If anyone
wants to take a look at my set-up, you can see it here -
http://www.netsync.net/users/gm/HF5B1.JPG but it's not a good photo for this
discussion. On the far right of the 2nd floor you can just barely see the window
of the room where the computer is, and it's next to that window. On the far left
side, just under the eve, you can just barely see the yellow rope that holds up
one end of the dipole. The other end is tied to a tree in the back yard.
QRP is not an option. I can barely put out a good signal with my antennas and
100 watts, and I have hills on 3 sides to me.
As for hiring an attorney.. I'd rather just move if it came to that.
Thanks again, 73, and Happy Holidays,
Gerry KA2MGE
--
FAQ on WWW: http://www.contesting.com/FAQ/rfi
Submissions: rfi@contesting.com
Administrative requests: rfi-REQUEST@contesting.com
Questions: owner-rfi@contesting.com
|
