A word of caution:
NEVER ever touch another persons equipment.
You are not qualified to repair home electronic equipment. Many states
license people to do that work. You are not licensed to do that work and
if anything, ANYTHING, should happen to your neighbor's equipment you may
find yourself in a court of law defending yourself for breaking your
neighbors equipment and having to answer the question "Are you licensed
to work on the equipment?" with a "No". You may be required to pay for
the repair of the equipment in such a situation, just because you were a
"good guy" trying to help his neighbor AND should you be found guilty of
practicing a trade (home electronics repair) without a state license you
may suffer even more misery.
The fact that you are heard in your neighbor's speakers is your
neighbor's problem, not yours. This fact may be difficult for your
neighbor to understand, so don't think he will accept this situation and
live with it.
You have a problem, but it is not RFI , it is your neighbor. Your best
bet is to allow him (HELP HIM) to complain to the FCC. They will send him
a nice booklet that will confirm what I have written here, but he
probably will not read it and will continue to hate you.
As long as you are operating within the FCC rules, you are OK but be
ready to duck if necessary.
73, Don
On Fri, 22 Dec 2000 17:26:30 -0500 "gm@netsync.net" <gm@netsync.net>
writes:
>
> Hello,
>
> I wonder if I could get some advice on an RFI problem. I live in an
> apartment that is part of a large house. There is one other
> apartment
> here too, and my neighbor there has been complaing about RFI from my
> HF
> rig. His main complaint is that I'm coming through the speakers on
> his
> computer. My main antenna is a Butternut HF5B 2 el mini-yagi that is
> mounted up on the roof. The bottom of the antenna is roughly 15 to
> 20
> feet above his computer, and 5 feet away horizontally.
>
> My first question is: In the eyes of the FCC, is my antenna too
> close to
> his apartment? I have heard some people say that the FCC expects a
> ham's
> antenna to be at least 50 feet away from any neighbors, otherwise
> the
> ham can be blamed for interference. Is there any truth to this? I
> normally run 100 watts output, and I know that my neighbor's
> apartment
> is within the FCC's RF saftey limits. I occasionally run 500 watts
> for
> DX pile-ups, which is also within limits, but I only do it when the
> neighbor is out. It's very possible that the FCC will be coming here
> to
> look at the problem, so I need to know if my antenna is too close
> (at
> 100w), and if I could be held responsible for the RFI problem.
>
> I also have dipole for 30 and 40 meters, but I only use it when the
> guy
> is out. That antenna is roughly parellel to his 2nd floor apartment,
> and
> about 20 feet away from it. There isn't enough room here to put up
> anything better.
>
> As for cleaning up the RFI, I have not been able to do much since my
> neighbor is not very cooperative. The problem is from HF fundamental
> frequencies. I'm coming through the speakers on his computer, which
> he
> insists on leaving on 24 hours a day. He won't turn off his
> amplified
> speakers - not even before going to bed at night. He uses rabbit
> ears
> for a TV antenna, and we are in a fringe reception area. His TV is
> at
> least 30 feet from my antenna, and I clobber every channel. He also
> says
> I come in through the phone line.
>
> Since his main complaint is with the computer speakers, that is
> where I
> have been trying to help him so far. I don't seem to cause any
> interference at all on his monitor. I tried using ferrite beads on
> various speaker cables and mananged to reduce the interfence by
> maybe
> 50%, but it is still very noticeable. I only had 2 beads, so I
> couldn't
> do as much as I wanted, but I doubt that beads alone would have done
> the
> job. He has a total of 5 speakers, with 2 separate ampifiers. At one
> point I grabbed a hand-full of the speaker wires and the interferece
> dropped WAY down. I'm thinking I might be able to wrap several turns
> of
> wire around these cables, then ground the wire to simulate the same
> thing. Does that make any sense? His computer is grounded btw. I
> grounded it because the AC wiring in this place is not grounded.
>
> For the phone line, I will try a bead or a torroid core. For the TV,
> I'll try a high-pass filter, but I have doubts that it will help
> much.
>
> It's been hard to do much of anything because the neighbor isn't
> very
> cooperative. We agreed yesterday to work on the problem at noon
> today,
> before he would go to work at 2 pm. He wouldn't answer his door or
> his
> phone when I tried to reach him several times between 12 and 1:30.
> Finally, just before he had to leave for work, he anwered his door.
> He
> said he "must have been sleeping" earlier. This is typical for this
> this
> guy, - it's happened before. So, I'm about ready to just go ahead
> and
> operate and let him make complaints to the FCC. It's easier than
> dealing
> with his lousy attitude. I need to know first though if my antenna
> is
> too close to him. I'll probably be able to get in his place one last
> time to try a few things though, so any advice on solving the RFI
> problems is also appeciated. I've never had problems with RFI
> before, so
> all of this is new to me.
>
> Thanks,
> Gerry KA2MGE
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