Excellent! Good on you for your initiative and on him for his cooperation.
I found the coolest part of your story is about watching the noise on site
with the Flex SmartSDR app on your iPhone. "Way cool"
73, Dan
On Sun, May 1, 2022 at 1:58 PM <rocketnj@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi All
>
> Thought I would share this.
>
> I've been plagued with powerline noise for years, especially bad on 15 and
> 40 meters. The Flex Radio wide noise blanker does magic on it as long as
> the
> noise is constant, but on a low humidity, breezy day the noise comes and
> goes so quickly that the WNB algorithm in the radio can't lock on quick
> enough.
>
> Today I was out and saw a Jersey Central Power & Light truck near a park
> about a mile from my house. I started talking to the gentleman from JCP&L
> asking which department handles my specific complaint (after explaining how
> the arcing causes RF interference). My contact at JCP&L retired recently. I
> explained I am fairly confident I had isolated the problem to the dead end
> insulators that are at the end of the HV line coming into my neighborhood,
> which happens to be on a pole on the corner of my property. He wasn't sure
> who to contact but he was willing to ride over and take a look.
>
> We met at my house. I explained tapping on the pole would cause the noise
> to
> happen and it only usually is a problem on low humidity days, like today. I
> brought up the Flex SmartSDR app on my iPhone to watch and listen to 40
> meters while he took a small sledge hammer and gave the pole a whack.
> Bingo!
> You could hear the crackle and see it in the panadapter and waterfall.
> Whack, again you could see and hear it. He got out his push up fiberglass
> pole and pused on the dead end insulators. The noise was concurrent with
> him
> pushing the insulators. As the HV line swayed back and forth you could see
> the noise floor jumping in sync. He changed the old ceramic triple
> insulator
> with a polymer version. No more noise!
>
> I'm sitting here listening on 40 meters listening. Relative humidity is 20%
> (VERY low for northern NJ this time of year) and a slight breeze. No
> powerline noise!
>
>
>
>
>
> Dave wo2x
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> RFI mailing list
> RFI@contesting.com
> http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/rfi
>
_______________________________________________
RFI mailing list
RFI@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/rfi
|