Re: [IRCA] QRN problem - any ideas?
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Re: [IRCA] QRN problem - any ideas?



There's an intersection about a quarter mile from my house where the car radio gets overwhelmed by a strong noise. Sounds like a fluorescent light next to the radio, both immersed in water, and it appears to be on all the time day and night. I don't notice it at home. I don't know if it's the power lines, or one of the two houses. But if I was dealing with that at home I would definitely call the power company.

In my own house we have some dimmer lights that create absolute havoc with whip antenna radios in the house, mostly when the dimming is engaged. At full strength it's less noticeable. When I DX, I try to turn all of them off, though it is mostly defeated by having a long coax out of the house to reach the antennas.

Jim Renfrew


----- Original Message ----- From: "Gerald Wolczanski" <jerrywlinux@xxxxxxxxxxx> To: "Mailing list for the International Radio Club of America" <irca@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, April 28, 2012 10:34 PM
Subject: Re: [IRCA] QRN problem - any ideas?


Jim, this noise has been plaguing me as well.  I scrolled through the
lower HF spectrum this morning and found strong, fairly wideband (10
+kHz) burbly QRN/QRM signals throughout the band from 2 - 7 MHz (didn't
look higher, but I've seen signals on 20 and 15 meters as well).

I find it loud on 4065kHz (among many other frequencies).

The last time I had a noise like this, I put my Ten-Tec 509 on
batteries, made a little loop, and went "sniffing" in the neighborhood.
I found a leaky power line spark gap about 300 meters from my house.  It
was raucous and the noise had been reported by another ham about a mile
away.  I called the local power company and they quickly fixed it.

So, if you and I are hearing the same crap, it ain't local.  But, in the
next week or so, I am gonna shut off my house power to eliminate
anything in my house as a source....and then I'll go "sniffing" in my
neighborhood which is sparsely populated (1 - 2 acre lots).

This interference appears o/a 7040kHz....a popular 40 meter frequency
for us QRP'ers.  What  pain.


Jerry W
KI4IO
Warrenton, VA

On Sat, 2012-04-28 at 09:20 -0500, James Pogue wrote:
Dear friends and list members,



I am having a terrible time here with interference that is ruining my
listening/hamming experience and am hoping someone can offer some practical
suggestions. Here's the situation.



The interference - basically a continuous raspy sound - seems to come up at
about 0830 local time here each day. It is often (but not always) quiet
before then. The problem usually persists until late at night, i.e. 2300
local or later. The AM broadcast band seems to be affected the least, 80
meters suffers a little, but every other band from 40 through 10 meters is affected at different levels. I have tried some rudimentary methods to try and isolate it but without success. I'm not even sure if it is atmospheric (i.e., coming through my antenna) or through the AC line (mains). My antenna
is a G5RV Jr. in an inverted "V" configuration.



I am in an older house, 2-story in a residential neighborhood of Memphis, on essentially a zero line lot. I can supply the exact address if anyone wants
to see the house on Google maps street views. There are renters upstairs.



I have limited equipment available for isolating the problem, and even less technical knowledge. I'd really appreciate any suggestions for solving this
problem that now produces QRN at an S-9 level. I haven't called the local
power company yet, but don't hold out much hope for help from them. Thanks
very much.



Jim Pogue - KH2AR/W4

Memphis, TN USA

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