I have generally had no trouble getting malfunctioning streetlights
fixed within a few days here in California. Of course, here it is the
County that has responsibility, not the electric company.

Bruce Jensen

!0 years ago I called the FCC filed office, found out
who was "responsable" and started trying to contact
them. Repated voice mails, emails and regular snail
mails did nothing but raise my blood preasure.
I never got a response from the clown.
While I was wsting time and energy a cold snap,
10F hit, and the damn bulb blew, like BANG, in less
then an hour. I tried to carry on, but when I told
the field engineer the noise had qui, he got very
uncooperative. Told me there was no longer a
problem and they (FCC) had real work to do.
I even contacted the local US attourny and got a royal
run around.
At about the same time we had several fools in the central
KY area using modified crossband ham transcievers to
crossband state police comms into county PD freqs.
Even the police couldn't get any action fromt he FCC.
Now a nother local clow was running about 1.5KW(yea KW!)
on and around 27MHz. He was causing severe TVI and when
the TV stations complained, the FCC showed up 2 days later.
Follow the money.
We had troubl ewith local cable TV company running a leaky system.
Thye ignored all complaints, and the FCC promised to get back with
the local ham club.
Yea, sure.
The cable company runs several CW carriers to set the system gain and
maintain EQ. On was around 52MHz. At my suggestion some of the local
hams started a CW net on 52MHz. Drove the AGC amps nuts. They had to
tighten thier system up to stay in business. At least the FCC now
requires
all cable comapies to monitor and log their leakage profile. The cable
companies found it a good way to catch those who steal cable.
They plot the leakage from every house in the system from a hour fly
over.
The FCC only gets invovlved when money is at risk.
This was under El Jeffe Clinton.
But a BB gun is much quiter...less likely to get the LEOs out in force.
Terry

dxAce wrote:
wrote:
As far as trying to get the FCC to do anything,
someone is smoking bad dope.

Not true at all. If you believe that, then YOU perhaps are smoking bad dope.

It varies by field office. I've heard some areas get good cooperation and
enforcement; the Chicago office traditionally takes action only when a
strobe lamp is burned out on a land-mobile tower.

--
The state religion of the USA is atheism, as established by the courts.

wrote:

I listened to the BBC on 5975 from 00:00~04:00 lastnight, 2005 01 09,
and the only interence I had was a Low Preasure Sodium outdoor light
that is failing. It is about 300' from me and is getting worse every
night.
I guess I need to borrow a BB riffle.
Terry

Does the street light make a loud buzz from your radio every time it
re-lights or is it a continuous noise? Do you hear the street light
noise only at night or daytime too?

Only after dark.
And it is loudest right before it comes back on.
Sort of buzzz.....BUZZZ...!!BUZZZ!!..buzz..silence for
2 or 3 minutes. Thne it goes out and the process starts
over.
It is going down to 4F Sunday, so I expect it to die.

Terry

wrote:

Only after dark.
And it is loudest right before it comes back on.
Sort of buzzz.....BUZZZ...!!BUZZZ!!..buzz..silence for
2 or 3 minutes. Thne it goes out and the process starts
over.
It is going down to 4F Sunday, so I expect it to die.

I hate to beat a dead horse, but have you called your electrical service
provider?

Who is your electrical service provider?

What is their telephone number?, and do they have a 800 number?

An email address?

I'm willing to try to jump in here to give you a hand, as I know what electrical
interference can do to reception on shortwave.

dxAce
Michigan
USA

TouchStone Energy, formerly RECC.
But the damn light went out a few minutes
ago with a loud SPLAT that was loud inside
our house.
Ah, listen to the quite!
Had to work late today running video tape,
so I didn't get a cahnce to check this group
during my missed afternnon break.
I am very glad it went on and died because I
intend to use the upcoming three day weekend
to test an idea I have for a "better" feedline.
"Big Time TV" cameras use Triax.
Similar to Coax, but there are 2 isolated
shields. At work we had a MAJOR cleanup
and I have about 80' of slightly used Triax.
(I think Triax is a registered trade mark).
I suspect that some noise is creeping back up
my feedline to get into the antenna. I have placed
enough feritte split cores on my equipment to
pose a hazard to the compasses in overhead
aircraft! But I still have a few birdies that vanish
when I kill my PC. If this works I will try to write it up.
"Noise ingress", BT TV's term, is a major problem
for high end studio and field TV cameras. Triax
is very good at surpressing ingress.
Of course the temps are going to be about 4F,
but antennas allways work better if you suffer
errecting them!
BTW I have friends who used to work in a repair
shop and they salvaged all of the supresion cores
from dead equipment. I have a "whole bunch".
The more you add the better the results.
I have been tempted a time or two to pull the feritte
rod frm my McKay DA5 MW loop, it has an ~1/8"
hole lengthwise and it is about 10" long. But tempted
as I am,I have resisted. So far.
At least the bug zappers are quite this time of year.
Next on my insane noise reduction list is to add
filtering at every AC outlet and across every light
switch. I have found that a 0.1Ceramic cap, with
a 1 Ohm carbon film resistor in seires will quiten
the mains nicely. My insurance company and the
local fire department insist the caps be placed in
a "sturdy" metal box. I plan on using the micro Altoid
tins, spot soldered, protected by fiberglass tubing,
with the leads protected by flame proof heat shrink.
The 1 Ohm resistor makes a dandy fuse. I hope to
add feritte cores as I go.
Everyone already knew I was crazy, right?

Terry

In article , running dogg wrote:
I just tuned into the BBC (it's just after 0300 UTC as I write this) and
both 5975 and 9525 are covered up by that noise again. The one that
sounds like it's flourescent light QRM. The one that suddenly appeared
just after Christmas, then disappeared just after New Years, but now is
back. Whoever is doing this is quite close, RF wise, to my Northern
California location; I hear the noise even when I have the radio in a
position that is usually a "dead spot". It totally wipes out the BBC's
signal. I'm SURE this isn't a mixing product or front end overloading;
it doesn't appear on the stations on either side of the BBC's channel.
Is anybody else hearing this? I know that Arnie and Mark Zenier heard it
last time, so I'm not going crazy. Tune in to the BBC on 5975 and 9525
around 0300, just to see if you hear it. I'd like to know if more
easterly DXers like Ace can hear this and what they make of it.

So, "tote your portable ;-)". Well, I mean that in the real sense of
taking a radio around your neighborhood and seeing if it's local or
outside the area. If you don't have a portable shortwave, see if you
can pick it up on the high end of the AM band. Back when I really
had a problem, I found that it was the neighbor's line doubled back
projection TV when somebody was playing with the game console. (That,
and a corroded antenna wire).

The stuff I get now sounds like one or more computer monitor or TV
horizontal scan circuits, so I expect that one of the neighbors is
leaving their TV on. Or got a new set or 'puter for Xmas. Since they
run on (sort of) standard frequencies, the interference can seem the
same all around the world, but comes from a multitude of local sources
instead of one very powerful distant one. (OTOH, if it's drifty,
suspect those damn compact fluorescent lamps).

9525 has been so variable lately. Last Friday was strong all evening
until signoff at 04:00, but other nights last week were just horrible.
Makes me wonder if the folks in Florida let their antenna fall in the
swamp over Xmas vacation.

Keep track of the signal strength. The interference may be there all
along but doesn't really have an impact unless the signals are down
around S2-3.

Mark Zenier Washington State resident

Mark Zenier wrote:

In article , running dogg wrote:
I just tuned into the BBC (it's just after 0300 UTC as I write this) and
both 5975 and 9525 are covered up by that noise again. The one that
sounds like it's flourescent light QRM. The one that suddenly appeared
just after Christmas, then disappeared just after New Years, but now is
back. Whoever is doing this is quite close, RF wise, to my Northern
California location; I hear the noise even when I have the radio in a
position that is usually a "dead spot". It totally wipes out the BBC's
signal. I'm SURE this isn't a mixing product or front end overloading;
it doesn't appear on the stations on either side of the BBC's channel.
Is anybody else hearing this? I know that Arnie and Mark Zenier heard it
last time, so I'm not going crazy. Tune in to the BBC on 5975 and 9525
around 0300, just to see if you hear it. I'd like to know if more
easterly DXers like Ace can hear this and what they make of it.

So, "tote your portable ;-)". Well, I mean that in the real sense of
taking a radio around your neighborhood and seeing if it's local or
outside the area. If you don't have a portable shortwave, see if you
can pick it up on the high end of the AM band. Back when I really
had a problem, I found that it was the neighbor's line doubled back
projection TV when somebody was playing with the game console. (That,
and a corroded antenna wire).

I'm listening on a portable.

The stuff I get now sounds like one or more computer monitor or TV
horizontal scan circuits, so I expect that one of the neighbors is
leaving their TV on. Or got a new set or 'puter for Xmas. Since they
run on (sort of) standard frequencies, the interference can seem the
same all around the world, but comes from a multitude of local sources
instead of one very powerful distant one. (OTOH, if it's drifty,
suspect those damn compact fluorescent lamps).

I've been having severe interference all over 49m for months. (changing
the subject a little bit) It's a steady hum. I'm not sure what it is.

9525 has been so variable lately. Last Friday was strong all evening
until signoff at 04:00, but other nights last week were just horrible.
Makes me wonder if the folks in Florida let their antenna fall in the
swamp over Xmas vacation.

It's 31m in general. I've noticed that Radio Havana on 9820 has been
subject to such deep fading that it's almost impossible to make out what
they're saying. 6000 too, but 9820 is really bad. The BBC's 9525
frequency does it as well, although their signal doesn't usually have
the severe ups and downs that Cuba does.


Keep track of the signal strength. The interference may be there all
along but doesn't really have an impact unless the signals are down
around S2-3.

Mark Zenier Washington State resident

Running dogg, when you say "N. California location," where is that?
Near SF?

I am near SF (East Bay) and I get scores of seemingly random noises
across 5 - 10 MHz. 49m is especially bad for weird unidentifiable QRM.
Some of it sweeps (moves up and down the frequency scale), or changes
pitch while maintaiing a single RF.

I get intermod junk from local 50kW MW stations. Bad in wet weather
when the ground improves.

I also get screwy stuff that just comes on and off. Some of it fades
in and out like the HF signals, so some of it may be far away.

Also get the usual streetlight junk, too - that's fixable.

Bruce Jensen