[IRCA] The hunt for a noise source

["Martin and Wendy Foltz" <martinfoltz@xxxxxxx>]

I wanted to share this short story with the groups.

In August I took a trip to Michigan to visit my parents and when I returned I found a big buzz on my radio across MW and SW. Just what I wanted at the start of the DX season.

Well, today I had the house to myself so I took some time to turn off the main breaker and try to isolate the noise source. My old Radio Shack TRF was turned on and off went the power. Turning on each breaker individually and checking the TRF I finally isolated the noise to a breaker labeled PLUG. And of course it was the last breaker in the box.

The PLUG breaker goes to all the wall plugs in the house so next I ran around the house unplugging things like the desktop computer/printer/wireless router, my radio stuff and the TV/Cable. These are all on power strips making it easy to disconnect whole systems with one plug. The noise was still present.

Then I started searching the plugs in each bedroom and finally found the culprit. It was the charger for my wife's cell phone. She leaves it plugged in all the time.

So don't give up on noise. I live on a busy corner with 5 street lights and my wife likes stuff that produces noise. We have a Plasma TV (no DX while that's on), halogen lights, fluorescent tubes, quartz lights on our patio, a remote control fan lamp, dimmers (these seem to be OK), Oreck XL air purifiers, and flood lamps in the kitchen that generate noise.

Now I'm ready for the DX season.

Martin
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