"I will gladly accept any suggestions from the folks here."
"I have elminated one possible source: my own home. I connected the
FT-890 to a battery, then switched off the house main breaker. Result: no
difference whatever."
How many items, could be up to dozens, do you have that run on batteries or
have battery backups. Any one could be suspect, especially since the signal
is so strong.
When I'm out in the field looking for RFI, I have to leave my watch and
digital recorder home. My digital camera, used for ducumentation also
generates RFI beyond 500 MHz. My Daughter brings her MP3 player with her
and when she turns it on, I can hear what she's listening to over a wide
range of UHF.
"Next, I asked the noise expert with our local power provider, Avista, to
come
down from Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, about 80 miles north of me, to bring his
fancy hand-held parabolic job to see if the noise was power-line related."
Parabolic what? What was he looking for, RFI at 10 GHz? A microphone? Not
the best as the noise source could be inside something or blocked by
something and not be heard. He should have had a whole slew of RFI
detection equipment from LF to UHF with antennas varying from a rubber duck
to a loopstick to a Yagi.
"After wandering around over quite a number of blocks, the only source he
thought MIGHT be the problem was coming from our next door neighbor's
new Ruud furnace"
With the right equipment, even his parabolic thing, depending on the purpose
and conditions, he should have been able to narrow it not only to the pole,
but in many cases to the specific bolt, clamp or other hardware causing the
problem.
"Result: no difference whatever."
What about battery operated devices in that home?
Have you tried to locate the noise at VHF or UHF? Can you hear it that
high? It makes a big difference in locating it if you can! For example,
when I looked for RFI using HF, I could narrow it down to a region. Adding
an attenauator helped, but increased search time by hours in some cases.
Switching to UHF, I can pinpoint sources quickly.
"Most of my operating is HF traffic handling and NTS duties, mostly via CW,
some PACTOR, and some SSB. This situation is causing major problems."
Ah, the potential for loss of life and property due to this interference.
Contact the ARRL and get them involved. They will ask for documentation of
the noise, what you've done and come up with a few ideas to help.
Kurt
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