We have a rather high noise level around here on 160 thru 40 (I use an
MFJ-1026 to cut down on the noise and it works pretty well ... but, I
digress...).

During rainy weather, though, the noise level seems to go way down, from
S7+ down to S1 or S2.

Reading everything I've read about "precipitation static" and such, I
would have expected it to be the other way around.

What is it about general "noise" that makes it go way down during rainy
weather?

Antenna is a 160-meter inverted V up 50+ feet in the center and fed with
ladder line, but I see the same effect on my 17-foot-high coax-fed dipole
for 75 and 40 meters.

Noise goes down so low that I'm thinking about setting up a sprinkler to
keep the antenna wet! :-)

Rick (W-A-one-R-K-T) wrote:
Noise goes down so low that I'm thinking about setting up a sprinkler to
keep the antenna wet! :-)

Sounds like power line corona to me or maybe
a bad power line ground. When the corona discharge
path gets wet, it reduces the discharge threshold.
Guess sprinkling the power lines is not an option,
huh? :-)
--
73, Cecil http://www.w5dxp.com

I have a little experience with powerline noise here in semi-rural southern
Oklahoma. I can't claim any expertise but it seems to work like this; As dry
weather dries the poles and hardware any arc sparking that occurs has to
span greater arc lengths and gets louder. If w e get rain (not so common in
the last year or so) the insulating factor of the dry poles and hardware is
diminished, spark arcs are shorter and the noise is reduced. Not every
electronic noisemaker is an outdoor iten, but if wet weather quiets'em down,
they probably are.Last year I had 30 days of S9+ noise before the power
companies "noise" crew could get to me and fix the problem. Turns out the
pole with my power service connection had an arcing ground wire which they
fixed in about 30 minutes. My background noise level dropped to a more
tolerable S1 oor S2. My pole was an old one and the ground wire on the pole
ran from the very top of the pole so it could act as a lightning rod as well
as a regular ground wire (they said the newer poles aren't wired that way
anymore). It, of neccessity,. ran close to insulator mounting hardware and
that was my noise source. They cut the top couple of feet off the old ground
wire, tightened the actual ground connections, and made my day.

Harold
KD5SAK

"Rick (W-A-one-R-K-T)" wrote in message
news


What is it about general "noise" that makes it go way down during rainy
weather?

Another reason is that as things dry out, the
connections to the pole Losen up , as the pole
shrinks, relative to the hardware. and- induction
to , say Crossarm Braces , can cause arcing ,
between those braces ! A way to check for this is
to give a pole a swift hit with a hammer. If the
noise goes away, or is changed, probably is loose
hardware on the pole . A thought for your
consideration- Jim NN7K

"Rick (W-A-one-R-K-T)" wrote in message
news

What is it about general "noise" that makes it go way down during rainy
weather?

Is the noise a 60 cycle hum ? or just noise in general? qrn or qrm?
I still think that it is a grounding problem .

I could be wrong but it sounds like thw same problem I had untill I
expanded my ground system and tied it to my utility (meterbase ground)
Then all the noise, vanished....
My 2 cents

"Jim - NN7K" wrote in message
...


Another reason is that as things dry out, the
connections to the pole Losen up , as the pole
shrinks, relative to the hardware. and- induction
to , say Crossarm Braces , can cause arcing ,
between those braces ! A way to check for this is
to give a pole a swift hit with a hammer. If the
noise goes away, or is changed, probably is loose
hardware on the pole . A thought for your
consideration- Jim NN7K

"Rick (W-A-one-R-K-T)" wrote in message
news

What is it about general "noise" that makes it go way down during rainy
weather?

Stuff talking about is arcing- 6o cycles should
have little to do with it. Also, had friend with
lamps going super bright , he got electrician to
go thru his power panel, and outlets- several 100$
later, got hold of power company, and they kept
stalling him (no problem found). after it also
ate several appliances, told him to keep checking.
As I suspicioned, on the power pole, they found
where a lightning strike had annealed the Neutral,
at it's connection to his service, and ground
wire! Point being lots of these services haven't
been looked at in years, and drying out/ vibration
on these can cause a lot of greif! Jim NN7K

merlin-7 wrote:
Is the noise a 60 cycle hum ? or just noise in general? qrn or qrm?
I still think that it is a grounding problem .

I could be wrong but it sounds like thw same problem I had untill I
expanded my ground system and tied it to my utility (meterbase ground)
Then all the noise, vanished....
My 2 cents

"Jim - NN7K" wrote in message
...

Another reason is that as things dry out, the
connections to the pole Losen up , as the pole
shrinks, relative to the hardware. and- induction
to , say Crossarm Braces , can cause arcing ,
between those braces ! A way to check for this is
to give a pole a swift hit with a hammer. If the
noise goes away, or is changed, probably is loose
hardware on the pole . A thought for your
consideration- Jim NN7K
"Rick (W-A-one-R-K-T)" wrote in message
news What is it about general "noise" that makes it go way down during rainy
weather?

I still would check out the grounding system on the rig.

Rain would increase the grounding of a station (with a bad grounding
system) incredibley.

If the rig is not grounded properly, There is no telling what kind of noise
you would pick up but as 60 cycle hums from the power grid are the most
common, I would think that that would be the first (noise) you would hear.

"Jim - NN7K" wrote in message
t...

... had friend with
lamps going super bright , he got electrician to
go thru his power panel, and outlets- several 100$
later, got hold of power company, and they kept
stalling him (no problem found).

I'm surprised it took more than a few minutes to diagnose this. A floating
neutral is about the only thing that can cause that symptom in just one
house.

Another interesting variation of this ..

Jim - NN7K wrote:
Stuff talking about is arcing- 6o cycles should
have little to do with it. Also, had friend with
lamps going super bright , he got electrician to
go thru his power panel, and outlets- several 100$
later, got hold of power company, and they kept
stalling him (no problem found). after it also
ate several appliances, told him to keep checking.
As I suspicioned, on the power pole, they found
where a lightning strike had annealed the Neutral,
at it's connection to his service, and ground
wire! Point being lots of these services haven't
been looked at in years, and drying out/ vibration
on these can cause a lot of greif! Jim NN7K

merlin-7 wrote:
Is the noise a 60 cycle hum ? or just noise in general? qrn or qrm?
I still think that it is a grounding problem .

I could be wrong but it sounds like thw same problem I had untill I
expanded my ground system and tied it to my utility (meterbase ground)
Then all the noise, vanished....
My 2 cents

"Jim - NN7K" wrote in message
...

Another reason is that as things dry out, the
connections to the pole Losen up , as the pole
shrinks, relative to the hardware. and- induction
to , say Crossarm Braces , can cause arcing ,
between those braces ! A way to check for this is
to give a pole a swift hit with a hammer. If the
noise goes away, or is changed, probably is loose
hardware on the pole . A thought for your
consideration- Jim NN7K
"Rick (W-A-one-R-K-T)" wrote in message
news What is it about general "noise" that makes it go way down during
rainy
weather?





Failure to bond the neutral-ground run at the power pole with the system ground
on the primary high voltage side at a rural site with a single pole pig serving
a single site can cause real problems too! Add the lightning strike issues,
which then, depending on the high current / low voltage point in the wave, can
move down into the facility wiring - or are involved with the ground line
carried strike point on the service loop. Which then cause intermittent arcing
in any of the various panels of the facility. Which can be in the meter can,
in the primary exterior breaker box, or .. even .. AND .. in the interior panel
at that point!

I got hit with this one at my site rather suddenly and because the power
company and I have had a year's long history of really helping find some of
these issues in rural high side locations, they moved quickly. Seeing surge
issues at a serious telecom site which also show up as noise on the 240 side
with flickering no/light load analog meter observation brought the bucket crew
out in about an hour that Sunday night in the dark.

Final story. 30 years ago the power company never bonded the pole pig ground
neutral with the earth ground line to the primary low voltage ground line for
that segment at this transformer, required per current code! Arcing damage
issues were evident relative to the grounding neutral as well as the pig
neutral run .. but it looked like not internal in the pig.

Fixed! Because the company was good enough to realize that if you can see this
in an analog meter needle flicker for differential flickers even no load inside
the facility with 240 volt loading and minimal split voltage load across the
120 volt legs, something has to be wrong in the distribution game.

But you know, lightning can do strange things even still. Remember that the
strike(s) show(s) different damage points on lines because of the high voltage
vs. high current points on the waveform, which change position during the
strike as it spans those tiny microseconds of the time it lives. And .. weeks
later .. no possible strike during that time of the year .. here are some more
of the flickers again!

Answer .. neutral float issues in the interior panel as well, even with
mechanical bind screws down hard too! We all checked that inside the facilityu
with the power company crew before they even went out to the pole. Fair is
fair. But you know, the panel's metal buss bar rod transfer from the bound
neutral to the bar routing in it had strike arc surface deterioration in it
ALSO in this case! Which of all things I found, because with the panel cover
off, I had walked in to start looking at things with scope meters and so on in
the dark that night. And saw a tiny flicker of light way under all the wire
and bonding line clamp - turn down connections!

The guy in the bucket truck who brought their part of the service into the code
compliance .. after 30 years .. was surprised. Which resulted in a review of
a whole host of other checks around here and there. As were the crew when I
told them the truth about the other part of it as well. We really don't know
if the or which strike .. was an entry issue because of the bad ground path
romp out at pole level. Or this was a hit on the service loop somewhere itself
for the facility - then or at some other time as more than one strike.

I get hit directly an average of about once a year here.

But we all know that damage isn't just a one spot one swat issue. And just
because the lights flicker over a neutral fault doesn't mean that you can
ignore BOTH sides of the problem. Especially at telecom sites which may be
unattended in operation and can suffer HUGE damage issues from this problem.

We also here realize that for a telecom site, the standard NEMA ground rod
issue at the service entrance meter drop is really not smart either. Yes, you
do that, check it for secure mechanical connections. But at telecom site
installs, you also run a few six or eight foot side surface radials from the
ground rod top out along the surface of the earth. That to help spread out the
strike along the ground surface if you get it trying to come into the facility.
A simple cheap trick that can save you real heartaches later. And one even
I, with all the real mitigation work on the tower arrays and so on plus being a
professional at this, had failed to do.

Thus the just between us sort of understanding now that at remote telecom sites
such as cell towers, whatever, the tiny cost of that little array of surface
ground radials at the service loop ground rod site are really a simple way to
cut down on future problem possibilities. And this isn't in the code.

The source of a problem is often from multiple vectors. I was part of it too
and could have helped protect me, but didn't. I was thinking, those long years
ago, "Well, that's over with and all the tower and inbound feed line mitigation
work is done. Everything is shunt fed on the towers and done right. I really
don't have to carry a loop surface ring around the ground at the surface of the
facility to the service loop entrance and so on."

Yeah .. right .. .

W5WQN


--


-- Sleep well; OS2's still awake!

Mike Luther

Powerline noise, I confirm
Check those around you 1+/-mile around you
Then point your antenna towards the lines and you'll see the noise signal
going up.
Then pray for a lot of rain !

"Rick (W-A-one-R-K-T)" a écrit dans le message
de news: ...

We have a rather high noise level around here on 160 thru 40 (I use an
MFJ-1026 to cut down on the noise and it works pretty well ... but, I
digress...).

During rainy weather, though, the noise level seems to go way down, from
S7+ down to S1 or S2.

Reading everything I've read about "precipitation static" and such, I
would have expected it to be the other way around.

What is it about general "noise" that makes it go way down during rainy
weather?

Antenna is a 160-meter inverted V up 50+ feet in the center and fed with
ladder line, but I see the same effect on my 17-foot-high coax-fed dipole
for 75 and 40 meters.

Noise goes down so low that I'm thinking about setting up a sprinkler to
keep the antenna wet! :-)