"Still looking at night vision toys, lol."
Chuck,
When I had my garage floor "mud-jacked" with a hot mix of
"plastic",
one of the guys had a tablet computer with it's built-in camera that
was
sensitive to infared. He
showed me where the hot mix was going under the concrete on the
screen.
Now I'm thinking that something similar would show any higher
temperature
areas on any powerline hardware.
There might be a "app" for that for use with a cellphone....just
thinking out loud. :O)
73,
Charlie, N0TT
On Fri, 16 Apr 2021 02:24:08 -0500 Charles Plunk <af4o@twc.com>
writes:
Dave,
Yes I would try the binoculars. Surely cannot hurt. One
difficultly
I
had was a streetlight in my front yard is LED and another is
mercury
about 200' in another direction. They would reflect off shiny
hardware
like insulators and fool me into thinking it was arcs but when I
saw
the
tiny arc between the wire and that square washer I realized that
indeed
was very likely an arc as that stuff is dull and not that
reflective.
Chasing this stuff is certainly time consuming but can be
rewarding.
This group is the best around. Their tip to match the noise
somehow
was
my big breakthrough. Doing that was not easy but that one day when
the
noise had a distinctive pattern and I was able to listen at the
same
time to the retransmitted audio from my station receiver on one HT
and
to my triangulation audio on another HT made the difference in
finding
the right pole. Lots of noise out there that will mislead you.
Other
poles, houses, etc many seem to all have noise if you get close
enough
but may not be affecting your station receiver significantly.
Then ultrasonic and the flashlight. Still looking at night vision
toys, lol.
My utility was great! They were on the front page of the local
paper
this week for their reliability rating. The new CEO must have it
going on.
73
Chuck
AF4O
On 4/15/21 11:05 PM, David Decoons wrote:
Hi Chuck,
Thanks for the detailed description of your problem and how you
were able to find it. I have power line noise prevalent when dry
and
windy. You can watch the noise floor jump up and down. When it
rains
or not windy it usually is not present. When present the noise
floor
on 40 and 15 meters is 20 to 25 dB higher. Using the Flex Wide
Noise Blanker I can get the noise to drop almost to normal, but as
the arcing comes and goes rapidly with windy day the WNB keeps
trying
to reobtain lock.
I have narrowed it down to what I think is a single pole on
right
front corner of my property. I will try the binocular trick at
night. It is supposed to be windy tomorrow with drying
conditions.
The good thing is I know the person in charge of the group that
would respond to RFI noise complaints at the local utility
company.
He has been very cooperative in the past.
73
Dave wo2x
Sent from my iPad
On Apr 15, 2021, at 9:30 PM, Charles Plunk <af4o@twc.com>
wrote:
?I notified the utility on Sunday evening. They come out today
and did the work. I will be updating the website below as I got a
chance. After such a long time I am hesitant to believe its fixed
until listening for about a month but it sure appears to be fixed.
I
am not hearing a peep of the same noise.
I have 2 doublets and a 6BTV vertical on HF, a 4 el 6m beam,
and
some 2m beams and am hearing some noise on some bands on one and
other noise on the other bands on the other but nothing like the
intensity of the 120hz noise I was hearing on all of them. I am
probably hearing these noises now since they were masked by the
other far more stronger noise. At any rate these pale in
comparison
to the other and go away for the most part at night as the
humidity
rises. Will chase them as I get time. They may not even be 120hz.
At any rate I am happy happy right now!
73
Chuck
AF4O
On 4/11/21 1:47 PM, Charles Plunk wrote:
Last night I tried my digital camera and binoculars. I could
see
the arc's with binoculars! Looks like ground and neutral wires are
to close to other hardware. The digital camera captured one arc
but
was so dark could not see the pole. Anyone ever use a night vision
camera like used for hunting etc for this?
Updated details at