At 09:50 AM 2/3/03 -0700, Peter Larsen wrote:
>BTW I am one of those guys who say don't kick/hit the wood
>poles with any thing.
>First off you will get very little change in the noise level, and secondly
>you may be at the wrong pole. Until you have spent some time (a few
>months) riding around with a proper utility RFI suppression crew
>you are just shooting blind. (and probably annoying the crews)
Neither of these statements is consistent with my experience. Most of the
big noisemakers in my area have been slack spans, where one pole is guyed
and the one across the road (typically) is not. Rattling the top guy till
you see visible movement in the primary will quickly tell you (via your
receiver) if you're on the right span.
I have had good luck with using progressively higher frequencies to locate
noise sources. The AM radio in your car will tell you there's a problem;
your short wave AM radio will get you close; and an aircraft band AM
radio, preferably with a directive antenna and an attenuator, will usually
take you to the pole.
At this point, I have considerably better equipment for RFI source location
than my power company has. Their one and only RFI guy (for several states)
just retired and the local guys are flying almost totally blind. They want
to help, though, and are grateful for anything I can do to pinpoint sources.
73, Pete N4ZR
The World HF Contest Station Database was updated 1 Feb 03.
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