Mark the Date! E-SKIP Has Started!

Status
Not open for further replies.

SOFA_KING

Member
Joined
Apr 25, 2004
Messages
1,581
Location
SE Florida
4/23/10

4:45 PM EST

Hearing NC SP on 42 MHz and MD on 39 MHz. Even hearing NC mobiles in SE FL. And now Ulster County NY Fire dispatch on 33.48. Yea! Low Band skip is back!

I say, "Its low band or no band!" :D

Phil :cool:

UPDATE: MOHP now on 42 MHz (6:00 PM EST).
 
Last edited:

SOFA_KING

Member
Joined
Apr 25, 2004
Messages
1,581
Location
SE Florida
Just a follow-up...The opening lasted until 10:00 PM EST and MO was all I heard towards the end.

I just love low band e-skip. It brings back such fond memories of a time when low band ruled...a time just about lost. Memories of warm weather, sweet corn on the cob, real red garden fresh tomatoes, ripe sweet watermelon, mounting better and better antennas on the roof of the house to see how much further you could hear, Motorola Micor and Mitrek radios (Mitrek being the best radio ever made!) in those police cars with great audio that is almost non-existent today, Systems 90 scan heads, full 1/4 wave ball & spring mount antennas, troopers and sheriffs cruising the long state roads with awesome low band coverage, hilltops and towers with low band antennas on them, scanners that could hear low band stations for hundreds of miles across the state, strong distant skip voices from other parts of the country with funny accents, even the rate of fading going up and down on the signal like great waves ionosphrere power brings back such joyful feelings. Remember how strapping the audio was on the MO HP back in the 70's? Remember those intersystem frequencies like 39.46 and how all the Sheriffs cars in the state had that channel and would talk to one another? Remember how you could hear just about any state when the band was open, and how you were trying to figure out what state you were hearing during those monster openings??? It was a glorious time for radio. A time almost gone and forgotten. A time of QUALITY radios and robust audio (long gone). A time when it didn't cost billions of dollars for a good sounding and effective radio system!

Once they got away from those stylish looking crystal radio designs, and went to "black box" synth radios, it all started to change. Audio quality went downhill, noise blankers did not work as well, and everyone started moving to higher bands that required more tower sites due to lower range. Car to car range dropped dramatically. Intersystem channels went by the wayside. It just was never as good! How I wish we could go back. Maybe plan better frequency reuse, but bring back those radio designs with stylish looks and strapping audio. Bring back the quality we once had! Does anyone else miss that???

BTW - My scanner is alive again at 7:30 AM EST with good old MOHP. I have a feeling skip will be even better today! :)
 

kruser

Active Member
Premium Subscriber
Joined
Nov 25, 2007
Messages
4,987
Location
West St Louis County, MO
Lucky You!

Nothing here yet. I also loved the good old days of low band skip. Used to get many northeast stations back in the day.
I'll be tuning around today hoping for an opening.

Being as you are getting Missouri in your area, are there any low band stations left in your area in case the conditions are open both directions?

Forgot but Missouri still has some "Strapping" audio! I love it and I also love listening to them on my good ole bearcat III crystals radios or the Icom R7000 and R9000's!
One other note, our Troop C relocated to a new building some miles away but they retained the old transmitters.
There is a guy that visits the Missouri forum that works on them and he claims they are the same transmitters from the 50's so that would explain the superior audio. I'm not sure of the rest of the troops in the state but I know one thing for certain - I no longer hear them like I used too years ago. May be due to my location or local interference from all the computers and other electronic hash in today's world or maybe because they have "newer" and "better" transmitters.
 
Last edited:

SOFA_KING

Member
Joined
Apr 25, 2004
Messages
1,581
Location
SE Florida
Lucky You!

Nothing here yet. I also loved the good old days of low band skip. Used to get many northeast stations back in the day.
I'll be tuning around today hoping for an opening.

Being as you are getting Missouri in your area, are there any low band stations left in your area in case the conditions are open both directions?

Forgot but Missouri still has some "Strapping" audio! I love it and I also love listening to them on my good ole bearcat III crystals radios or the Icom R7000 and R9000's!
One other note, our Troop C relocated to a new building some miles away but they retained the old transmitters.
There is a guy that visits the Missouri forum that works on them and he claims they are the same transmitters from the 50's so that would explain the superior audio. I'm not sure of the rest of the troops in the state but I know one thing for certain - I no longer hear them like I used too years ago. May be due to my location or local interference from all the computers and other electronic hash in today's world or maybe because they have "newer" and "better" transmitters.

Hi, kruser. I wish FL still had some low band. The only thing left is State Highway, and maybe South FL Water Management, but I know they were looking to go with trunked 700 MHz garbage or something. But MO rules! And you are in the center of the country, so you can get skip from many places in the States I can't. But yes, there are not many left on low band. I'm getting OK this morning as well.

I once sent a letter in the late 90's to the guy who ran the MO system. He gave me the whole story. He built the original consoles they used in the 60's and 70's. The audio was beyond powerful! Poplar Bluff had the most crisp, loud, and full audio of any with a slight hum (not the PL hum) on the signal. You could hear someone typing in the background with a distinct "snap" for every character they typed. It was the best audio I ever heard...ever! The story goes that when they expanded to other frequencies (other than 42.06 & 42.12) they had to go with Motorola Centracom consoles, and the great audio was gone when they did that. Now everything sounds like it is filtered and narrowbanded. It's never going to be the same. :( But at least you have a state that is still a low band state, although I hear that you may be going 700/800 trunked soon. I'm so sorry to hear that!

Oh...and yes on the low band noise problem. The FCC has failed to regulate that. Not only do powerlines violate the limits of noise just about everywhere, but electronic devices (including automobiles) emit such trash that greatly raises the noise floor. The FCC allows this because there is no enforcement. What a waste! Low band is the best, but hey...the big radio companies want to sell you those garbage billion dollar systems, right? ;)
 

kruser

Active Member
Premium Subscriber
Joined
Nov 25, 2007
Messages
4,987
Location
West St Louis County, MO
Yes sir, those were the good ole days!
I used to live in the souther part of St. louis county and I was up high puls I had a low band antenna on a tower. On most days, I could pickup every troop in the state. Not so these days.
I also could follow a patrol car in pursuit coming up Highway 44 from Rolla (more in the center of the state) all the way until he dropped the pursuit if they made it to the Illinois state line.
Now with my current setup, I'm lucky to hear cars 5 miles away:(
I'm in an apartment so no tower but they did let me install antennas on the roof plus gave me a key so I can work on them as needed. My antennas are still about 50 feet up as I'm on the top floor of a 3 story building and I use a tripod based mast to get me up as high as I feel safe above the roof line. I think if I went much higher that they would not survive the storms we get here so I stopped at the current height. I do still get good vhf high reception from a couple hndred miles out at times so my setup works fairly well but I sure do miss the tower days!
I don't miss the climbing part though.

I'm also located about 300 yards from a small power sub-station. It can and does radiate bad hash from time to time. It gets so bad at times that it wipes out any weak signal all the way from DC up to 200 MHz.
And as luck would have it, that hash just started minutes ago. It may last minutes or hours. One time it lasted several days.
I've notified the power company of the problem but by the time they get a guy out here, the noise has stopped. It wipes out my business repeater as well as the police radios. All this is on VHF High. I talked with a police officer once when he was here at the complex and could not hear his dispatcher on his portable or car radio. He came up and I showed him the interference on a spectrum scope so he did note it and I know for a fact that the county did talk with the power company but no fix yet. We also have a very large power sub-station that feeds my little one. It is only maybe a mile away at most and it could also be the culprit. It ties together several long haul cross country high tension lines.
So I think any chance I had at skip today is now shot as luck would have it. My noise level from the power line hash is S9!
 

jackj

Member
Joined
Jul 19, 2007
Messages
1,548
Location
NW Ohio
Yep, those were the days. A shoot out with the bad guy going crazy. You couldn't reach your dispatch or close cars for backup because of that station 500 miles away putting out a APB. Yep, those were the days alright!
 

kruser

Active Member
Premium Subscriber
Joined
Nov 25, 2007
Messages
4,987
Location
West St Louis County, MO
Yep, those were the days. A shoot out with the bad guy going crazy. You couldn't reach your dispatch or close cars for backup because of that station 500 miles away putting out a APB. Yep, those were the days alright!

Our local Troop C switched frequencies a few years back. I was told it was for the very reason you mention.
They could barely talk to their local cars almost every early afternoon like clockwork as the skip from the northeast was so powerful. I think the frequency swap also eliminated troop to troop interference due to them reusing the same frequencies amongst troops back in the day.
These days low band is so vacated that they can choose about any frequency they wish but I guess back then they were forced to use what was available and that is why they shared the same frequencies across the entire state. Looking at some old police Call books from 1981, it appears they shared the same basic 5 frequencies for the entire state.
42.060, 42.120. 42.220, 42.320 and 42.380. They also had a car to car license on 42.020 as they still do today.
 

psr600md

Member
Joined
Sep 11, 2008
Messages
350
Location
Green Bay,WI
we have one station left on low band up here,Green lake cfd 46.14 page out only,and dont forget the state DOT freqs 47.02-47.40 theres still a lot of states that didnt leave low band dot freqs-YET!
I miss KN on 39.58 inter-system.
And we had nil skip last night up here.
 

SOFA_KING

Member
Joined
Apr 25, 2004
Messages
1,581
Location
SE Florida
DOT may be the last stronghold. I'm scanning all low band now and hearing only a few fire depts on 33 and 46 megs. But I see the band is open to some states that have vacated low band, so the band is open but no one is home! :(

I like to watch the realtime MUF on this web page:

Sporadic-E clouds location and estimated MUF in the last half hour - NA

It is accurate, but the reflection point is not always a straight line. Sometimes it is at an angle.

I did a little plan of frequency reuse given the distance that e-skip stops being a problem, and where f-skip is a little too short to be a serious problem. There is a "zone" where you would have minimal skip. If frequency reuse were planned around that, and the band re-allocated some, every state could have a group of clear channels to use. How I wish they would all go back to low band and bring back those radios with the great audio...like the Mitrek. I use some of those great radios for 6m and 10m ham, and they are the best. No rice box radio can touch them for range and audio quality. The Extender noise blankers really cut the hash! It might help your low band reception, kruser. ;)
 

mancow

Member
Database Admin
Joined
Feb 19, 2003
Messages
6,879
Location
N.E. Kansas
It's starting to roll in pretty good here in Eastern KS at around noon.

Also, we still have the old 39.580 and 39.700 available for Motobridge patching at each of the tower sites. It will probably never be used but the possibility is there.
 

SOFA_KING

Member
Joined
Apr 25, 2004
Messages
1,581
Location
SE Florida
It's starting to roll in pretty good here in Eastern KS at around noon.

Also, we still have the old 39.580 and 39.700 available for Motobridge patching at each of the tower sites. It will probably never be used but the possibility is there.

Roger that ~ It is rolling in here too. Lots of small stuff like fire and some 39 meg stuff. A little MD SP on 39 megs with PL 110.9. I just wish radios had better audio than this late generation stuff. Everyone sounds thin and weak except for a few older fire radios out there.
 

kruser

Active Member
Premium Subscriber
Joined
Nov 25, 2007
Messages
4,987
Location
West St Louis County, MO
DOT may be the last stronghold. I'm scanning all low band now and hearing only a few fire depts on 33 and 46 megs. But I see the band is open to some states that have vacated low band, so the band is open but no one is home! :(

I like to watch the realtime MUF on this web page:

Sporadic-E clouds location and estimated MUF in the last half hour - NA

It is accurate, but the reflection point is not always a straight line. Sometimes it is at an angle.

My hash noise went away shortly after I reported it. Actually, it went away about the time I started the truck to try and find the source. I've never truly pinpointed it. As in the past, it quits if I leave to try and find it. Stay home and do nothing and the noise remains for hours:mad: I think that Murphy law guy has something to do with it!
Anyway, I've had the R9000 searching between 39.0 to 40.0 and an old Bearcat 250 searching 42.0 to 43.0 and neither has produced a single hit from afar:(
Maybe now that mancow is reporting signals in Kansas, I'll start seeing (hearing) something good. Of course I'm sure the power line hash will return about then:roll:
Thanks for the MUF link. I've used it before but had forgotten about that one.
I had an old Mitrek on low band but it did not have the noise blanker (Extender) section. I never did anything with that radio except give it away to a local ham. I suppose I should start looking for a new one but with the NB option installed.
I do use an MFJ noise canceller for HF stuff. It uses two antennas with one being the noise pickup antenna. The darn thing works great and I have coaxed it up to about 40 MHz before but it gets really touchy. Plus my long wire antennas are not very good above about 24 MHz. Pain in the butt swapping the coax over to the VHF stuff though so I doubt I'll mess with them.
I don't have a lot of space here so my HF stuff is in another room from my VHF+ gear. I rely heavily on computer control for the HF stuff so I've only extended the audio out to my main console. It works fairly well but can be a pain eliminating noise from your own computer equipment.
Now I have some electrical storms approaching so that will force me to remove the antenna system. If it isn't the noise, it's the lightning! I can't win today
 

SOFA_KING

Member
Joined
Apr 25, 2004
Messages
1,581
Location
SE Florida
I get some power line noise too. It would be much clearer if it were not there. If it gets bad enough I will call FPL to fix it. I know the law and they know I know the law, as I had them fix my old neighborhood. One trick you can do to stop it is jerk the guy wire on the pole. The power company showed me that trick. Dirve around with a 2m am rig and stop where it is strongest. Yank the guy wire and watch it stop. It works for a while, but they need to dust the insulators off or replaced the leaky ones.

Good luck with the skip!
 

kruser

Active Member
Premium Subscriber
Joined
Nov 25, 2007
Messages
4,987
Location
West St Louis County, MO
I get some power line noise too. It would be much clearer if it were not there. If it gets bad enough I will call FPL to fix it. I know the law and they know I know the law, as I had them fix my old neighborhood. One trick you can do to stop it is jerk the guy wire on the pole. The power company showed me that trick. Dirve around with a 2m am rig and stop where it is strongest. Yank the guy wire and watch it stop. It works for a while, but they need to dust the insulators off or replaced the leaky ones.

Good luck with the skip!

Ha, I've shook a many a guy wire on t poles! I even had a guy call the cops on me once when it rained sparks on me. I think that one had a really bad connection!
I'm almost certain this one is coming from within the confines of one of the sub-stations which are all fenced for obvious reasons. I would not go shaking anything around them as they carry some extremely high voltage.
My noise happens when the remote controlled switches are alwys in the same position. They switch them around at times and every time I've made it to the station very near me, the switches are always in the same position. The guys that come out did say that was good info as it narrows it down to two possible sources.
My local utility is very responsive to RFI complaints and have always helped me in the past. If this was not so darn intermittent in nature, I know they would have fixed it by now.
The other sub-station is huge and sits on several acres of land. You need binoculars to see from one end the the other. I really suspect this to be the source of the noise only because I made it close one day before the noise stopped and it was much much stronger as I was nearing the station.
Neither location is staffed as most equipment is now remotely controlled plus they have many sensors to monitor things like loads and what not on about everything inside the compound.
I'd imagine the county police will make a formal complaint to the FCC if they have not already as it does really mess with their radios when in this area.
 

kruser

Active Member
Premium Subscriber
Joined
Nov 25, 2007
Messages
4,987
Location
West St Louis County, MO
Good luck with the skip!

I love your Low Band Win500 file you put together! I did not know you had made that.
Sure will make things easy if I ever get good conditions.
Yesterday, we had at least one tornado if not two very near here. I did not get anything but rain though so was lucky.
Anyway, after it all blew through I reconnected the antennas.
Late last evening I was trying to monitor a fairly local 800 MHz system. The signal was bouncing all over the meter. I first thought I'd been hit by a nearby strike but later proved that false. I swore the coax had broken or rain had entered it. So I went on the roof and removed the coax seal and all was dry plus the coax tested fine. It is LMR400 and new.
This morning I decided to see if any activity was coming out of Indiana on UHF. I often can DX UHF TV from Indiana here. I'll be darn, the UHF signals were bouncing all over the place like the 800 MHz stuff last night. Signals would go from S9 to zero and back like crazy.
I determined this was only occurring on stations several miles away and all very local stations remained rock solid. Then I looked at the weather. It is raining and the trees and leaves are soaked plus it is windy. The signal fluctuations coincide with the wind. It appears the really wet leaves are attenuating the signals greatly. So, so much for any UHF DX this morning.
I did plug your Low Band file into my PSR-600 and have it running but the darn 600 is so dang sensitive and prone to overload. I have to set the global attenuator on plus I have to use filters in the coax feeding it to filter the nearby paging junk on 152 and 158 around here. I have three hospitals within eyesight and they all have paging transmitters atop them. Plus a nextel tower I could hit with a rock all makes for some tough work with filters and beam antennas!
I guess I'll just let the old 600 hum along with your low band file loaded and see if I get anything today. No bad storms and just rain today so I should be safe.

Thanks for putting that low band file together!
 

SOFA_KING

Member
Joined
Apr 25, 2004
Messages
1,581
Location
SE Florida
Glad you could use the file. I don't know who has the GRE's around here. They are great scanners. Overload is a problem, and I will never use the attenuator except on 800 because I have more than enough signal in my mobile or base. On the PRO106 I do not use the attenuator since I use the stock antenna, which works fine. I kill all my base/mobile overload with an old Radio Shack 75 Ohm TV FM Trap. I got a couple off evilBay for $7 shipped to the door. Best $7 bucks I ever spent (got two, so $14 total). Plus I had one. It cures all my overload problems...even in the RF dense city areas. Without them my VHF is deaf! With them I hear VHF for hundreds of miles. I believe they help low band as well. You might give one a try.

You know, it sounds like you are in the worst location for radio I have ever heard of. Have you considdered moving? I lived in appartments from 18 to 42 years of age, and I always had my ham and scanner radios working. I was careful to look out for trouble areas and avoid them. At some places I did very well with the radios. One place was on top of a 1000' mountain on the south edge of the Catskill range in NY. Talk about range! But nothing beats my own house...which I was careful to choose a fairly RF quiet location. What is it they say? Location, location, location... Now if only I lived on a hilltop or mountain. Not too many in South Florida! Just the garbage dump. :D

No skip here today...dead all day. :( Better days are ahead. :)
 

kruser

Active Member
Premium Subscriber
Joined
Nov 25, 2007
Messages
4,987
Location
West St Louis County, MO
How right you are in my area being horrible for radio! It is a big challenge making things work but honestly, I have much fun trying.
I appreciate your advice on using filters. Believe me, I have tried and do use several!
I also found the old RS tv and fm traps to help greatly. But, since they shut down the analog signals my interference from that area dropped to nothing. I'm lucky that I don't have any nearby FM or TV stations but I am overwhelmed by cell type towers.
I once was given a ride to get a part for my cell phone. The place is only 2 miles from here. Being as I was not driving, I was able to actually look at stuff as we drove along. I counted at least 18 cellular antennas atop towers, high tension power line towers, buildings etc..
I was amazed! And I'm sure I missed a few at that. I've found that the Uniden and GRE radios both suffer easily from desense in the low and high bands. My Icom radios handle it just perfect but they do not have all the nifty features that the scanners do. I've always wanted to install a CTCSS module in/on the R7000 and 9000 but never did.
I think my only true option would be to move like you said! But my location is so darn close to work that the gas savings alone make it worth it. I use a line of sight 902 -928 MHz FHSS radio link between my apartment and work. It provides telemetry for a lightning detection system as well as the entire set of mechanical equipment status at work. I'm the facilities manager at a country club so this data is very important to me. Yes, I could do it over IP but what the heck! Radio is fun so I do it that way.

For filters, I use many. I use those made by PAR electronics for the 152 and 158 MHz paging ranges as well as one for FM broadcast radio although the RS model you mentioned works as well if not better. I also sharply filter HF below 30 MHz for the VHF stuff. My biggest gain came from the 152 and 158 filters. Paging signals were wiping out VHF High but after I put those filters inline, I can now hear VHF High like you.
Right this minute, the noise floor is very high for VHF Low but high is fine. This is normal here in the evenings and it seems to rise with the humidity but only at night.
I also have some of those huge cavity type notch filters made by Decibel Products.
It all helps but you wind up at a point were you might as well just use a portable and rubber whip. My VHF High is so quiet that I could amplify it if needed.
The powerline interference is another issue and is the worst of my problems but I feel they will fix that as it does interfere with police and emergency radio. The VHF Low band high noise floor is another issue that I can usually work around with filters but it seems like each day requires tinkering with different filter and attenuation combinations.
Should I move, I will definitely choose a good location for radio! That 1000' mountain you mention sounds perfect! We have what they call a mountain here, Taum Sauk mountain. I don't know the elevation but it is the highest point in the state. I drove there before and it has several towers atop plus an unused fire tower. I'd love to own that fire tower!

Same here for skip, nothing all day.
I seem to recall that my best skip times here were during the late afternoon like 3 PM up until almost dusk for Low band. And UHF TV was good just after sunrise for an hour or two tops. I never did much work with VHF High and skip. I think I have more fun with that experimenting with various beams and relying on regular ground wave signals.
HF and below is a whole other story but I do it and enjoy it plus I generally have good results now that I have a working noise canceller and decent antennas!
I use a Yaesu FT-1000 for my main HF receiver and love that radio. I also have several others I use for HF and below but the FT-1000 beats them all. Plus, it was given to me free by one of my employee's whose amateur neighbor had passed away. I offered to help the guys widow sell it along with all the other gear they gave me but they insisted that I keep it. All total, the FT-1000, two HF mobiles - FT-840 and a IC-725 and several 2 meter mobiles and portables which were all Kenwood. Plus a slew of accessories for the above and other misc. electronic components. Tons of fun and all free!
 

SOFA_KING

Member
Joined
Apr 25, 2004
Messages
1,581
Location
SE Florida
Lucky you...on the radios! Well you have many more filters than I. Sounds like good stuff too. I was looking at that Taum Sauk mountain on Google Maps last year. That is where Poplar Bluff has one of its most powerfull transmitters! King of the Ozarks. As nice a location it is for view, it would make a horrible receiving location for scanners. Talk about overload! But get on another hill about 10 miles away (or more) with no towers around it and you will have a nice location. I learned that back in my hilltopping days in the northeast. ;)

Phil
 

kruser

Active Member
Premium Subscriber
Joined
Nov 25, 2007
Messages
4,987
Location
West St Louis County, MO
Yep, Taum Sauk is a neat place. The local power utility (those pesky guys that cause me all my interference) has (had) what they call a pumped water storage facility atop the next peak over. They pump water from a lake below to the reservoir above during the off peak night hours and the next day when the peak demand hits here in St. Louis they open the gates and let the water fly back down the mountain through huge pipes. The pumps used at night are spun in reverse by the water and generate a large amount of electric. A neat idea but terribly inefficient!
A few years back, the reservoir wall broke and the entire upper basin of water came crashing down the mountain and wiped out everything in its path. Luckily it was near christmas so the on site ranger at a historic recreation area (Johnson's Shut-Ins) was away from his home and of course nobody was camping. Had it been duringthe summer, surely many may have been injured as it is a very popular place.
Here is a wiki link if interested. Taum Sauk Hydroelectric Power Station - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I hear they are rebuilding it.

I monitored today and no skip here.

Last night I did some extensive testing to determine the source of my high noise levels.
I first killed all power in my apartment including removing batteries from devices. Nothing helped. I then used a spectrum scope and discovered the high noise floor stops abruptly at 60.390 MHz. It starts around 36 MHz. This is totally separate from what the power line noise causes as it is very wide in bandwidth when that crud hits.
So I tried thinking for a bit and thought about CFL lamps. The apartment complex replaced all lighting in the hallways with CFL's. I walked around with a portable but could not really find anything that singled them out. They did produce a bunch of crud but it was all not detectable more then a few feet away. Maybe a bad one in another building. I took the same portable (AR-8200) and attached a 1/4 wave wire to it indoors and the high noise floor was barely detectable.
My rooftop antenna that picks this noise up is maybe 15 feet above my portable. I thought this kind of ruled out the CFL's but maybe as a whole, the signals from them are cumulative.
I then realized I live in a faraday cage of sorts. My apartment building exterior is Stucco. The Stucco is applied to a wire mesh with maybe 1/4 inch spacing so it surely shields me from a bunch of outside rfi crud and legitimate signals. When I was walking outdoors with the portable, I was using a snipped off paper clip for an antenna and only trying to sniff the CFL's from close range. So maybe it is the CFL's after all. I also found a lot of hash entering along the shield from the cable tv coax. My antenna coax runs in parallel with the cable tv coax for about 20 feet so I think I should separate the two just in case the crud is being induced onto my coax. I don't think that is the case but I can change that easily. My noise appears to enter via my coax center conductor only and I would think I'd hear it on the shield if it was coming from the cable tv line.
That upper 60.390 cutoff point I mentioned does also contain a weak carrier on it that is stronger then the noise floor itself. I'm kind of hoping that if I can find the source of that, that I may also find my noise problem. I just think that it is odd that I find a carrier at the same exact point that the noise floor drops off to nothing on the upper side of the carrier.
I did confirm that 60.390 is a carrier of some type and not some internally generated stuff from the receiver. It is present on all radios that can tune the frequency plus I can hear it with other antennas. It appears to be unmodulated but I can detect what sounds like a 500 Hz tone that turns on/off for random intervals of 1/4 to 30 seconds in length roughly.
I went through this same troubleshooting before trying too clean things up to improve my DSL signal years ago. I had an unknown device causing fairly strong (and very dirty) signals roughly every 2 KHz from well below the AM broadcast range up into the low band range.
I had this apartment dark as dark could get. No power to anything so I thought. I'd also removed the large SLA batteries that keep everything running during a power failure but still had this very bad noise.
I was about to write it off figuring it had to come from a neighbors apartment when I spied an LED still glowing on a corded 2 line phone. An RCA Visys I think it was. It had a 9 volt backup in it. I yanked that sucker out and noise gone instantly! Later I took it apart and traced the noise to this little daughter card mounted above the main board. I built a complete copper shield around it on all sides and only left some tiny wire leads hanging out that soldered back to the main board. I even put little ferrite beads on each lead. But the RFI from this phone was so strong that I wrote it off as a failure. It now sits in parts in a box and was replaced by some 2 line phone that is AT&T labeled and causes zero RFI. I have no idea who actually makes the at&t branded phone. The bad RCA phone was detectable from over 200 feet away on some harmonics.
Since that discovery, I've always been careful to remove batteries from everything when RFI sniffing. I'm always amazed at how many things I have that use batteries for some type of backup. It is such a great number that I had to make a list for when I do troubleshooting or I'll surely miss one or two! Also, since the phone discovery I've also been amazed at how many devices can emit garbage that you would overlook. One was an old smoke detector. It had to be made when they first invented them so it is history. A battery powered clock was another. Not any atomic clock either, a simple AA battery powered clock movement!
I also had a kid on the ground floor that wiped out the DSL (and radio) signals for everyone in the building when he would come home. It took me a few weeks to figure out the loss of DSL service coincided with his arrival home from school or work. It turned out he had one of the original Quartz Halogen torch type pole lamps. It had a dimmer that had shot craps but only if he dimmed it a tad.
I worked around the noise by filtering my power lines but talk about some strong interference. All the others had called at&t but of course they would come out when the kid was away and find no problem as the lamp was turned off.
I approached him one day when he came home and the noise started. I told him about the problem and asked if he could turn his lights off. He did and noise was gone. Turns out he also had DSL and was getting ready to switch too cable because his DSL always went out!
He was more then happy to let me repair his lamp after I showed him how the interference stopped and started on an AM radio when he turned the lamp on/off. I offered to buy him a new lamp or install a fixed on off switch instead of the dimmer. He settled on the switch so it was an easy fix and all neighbors were very happy ever after! This kids apartment was also located on the wall of electric meters and the bad lamp was located directly on the other side of that bank of meters so I'm sure the hash was easily induced onto the power lines for all too hear! That noise was way worse then any power line noise I now experience from time to time.

Anyway, I just wanted to share some of the nasty things that living in an apartment may also include when it comes to a radio hobby as well as some of the torture one may go through in order to correct it so you can enjoy your hobby
I still have tons of fun enjoying the radio hobby and I have equal fun solving these types of problems. I consider it all part of the hobby. One warning though, not all neighbors are as understanding as the kid with the bad lamp was for me. In fact, I think most would right you off as a loony tune when you tell them their lamps are killing the internet for the entire building
 

kruser

Active Member
Premium Subscriber
Joined
Nov 25, 2007
Messages
4,987
Location
West St Louis County, MO
I'll be darn, I read the wiki link I'd included and I was surprised when I read that they did rebuild the power plant reservoir and just turned it back on 5 days ago! Amazing. I guess I should have no power problems this summer then:roll:
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top