On Sun, 23 May 2010 10:47:28 -0700 (PDT), John
wrote:


Power line problems are the easy for the most part and usually
within
one mile of your qth shack.
Take a small am portable radio and a large hand held hammer and start
walking
around the neighborhood. Tune off of a local station so you can hear
better.
HIt each pole that you come too with the hammer, any change heard
indicates
something is amiss. I have located bad ground connections in the guy
wires
from the pole at so many, I can not recall the number.
If you find a pole with bad noise, don't do anything yourself. Call
the local
power company,( sometimes it takes several calls until they start
helping),
let them listen to the noise in your rcvr and they show them what you
have
found. All power companies are suppose to have equipment that will be
a
great deal better than your am radio.
In either event, you will need the power company to help you!!!!!!


73
John K4ZYF,SC



This is bad advice! I have been a power line interference technician
for over 30 years, and I can tell you the last thing you should be
doing is hitting poles. We don't even hit our own poles.

Do NOT hit a pole with a hammer. There can be something broken and/or
ready to fall, and one good smack with a hammer could cause injury to
you, damage to the overhead equipment, or an outage affecting one to
several hundred customers. Why do I say this? I have seen it happen.

We had a customer (a ham radio operator) recently who was becoming
very impatient with the responce from our company. He started his own
hunting with a hammer. He was then sent a letter from our company
advisng him that any damage or outages caused by him would result in a
hefty bill being sent to him.

Some power companies (ours included) will prosecute you if they catch
you hitting their poles. You have no authority to hit property that
does not belong to you, just like you do not have authority to hit
your neighbor's dog because it barks too much or your neighbor's
motorcycle because it annoys you. That pole is private property!

Call and report any possible noise problems to your power company.
Keep after them! They are required to respond and repair. If they do
not, notify the FCC. In the past year or so, the FCC has been coming
down hard on power companies (ours included) that have failed to
respond to reported problems.