I hope the group doesn't mind me taking a little bandwidth on this, but
I've been searching for a solution to an RFI for months to no avail. If
anyone knows what this might be, or has seen this before, I'll be in your
eternal debt. It's my luck that this is roughly in the direction of Europe.
Since about April I've had RFI issues on 20 through 10 meters, but loudest
on 15. I have an IC756PROII, and on the scope it appears to be a series of
spikes moving right to left (seems to be a switching power
supply?...unstable and decreasing frequency). When it's just the spikes
the noise has a grinding sound on SSB. But there's another
component. This is a series of little blobs moving very quickly left to
right on the scope, which I take to mean unstable and increasing
frequency). This is accompanied by a rushing water sound (best I can
describe it).
Here's another kicker....it NEVER occurs during rain. Never. The local
power company has now been out four times trying to find this thing and
have tightened the hardware on a number of poles, but the noise
persists. I'm convinced it's not the power company.
To give you an example of the sequence, today is a good example. It rained
last night/this morning, no noise. Then the sun came out about 11 AM, the
little spikes appeared, moving right to left on the scope. The the little
blobs appear. This goes on for about an hour, then it's only the spikes
and then the noise (and spikes) abruptly stops. Then, the little spikes
(and grinding noise) appear sporadically for maybe 2-3 seconds at a time.
I've never seen the noise appear at night, And though it never appears
when it's raining or damp, it's not there all the time when the sun's out,
either.
I've pegged the direction at 60 degrees, and have drawn a line with that
heading from my QTH on the map I use for APRS. I've driven that way a
number of times, but nothing. I've often come home to find the noise gone,
so it's possible I was chasing a ghost. Oh, I've shut off breakers in my
house and it doesn't matter (besides the house is not at 60 degrees, but
who knows?)
My wife was all set to drive me around this afternoon when the noise, once
again, stopped.
Does anyone have a clue what this might be? If you got this far, thanks
for reading.
73, Joe KQ3F
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