The Pig is dead!

[Michael Terrell]

I have lived here for over 20 years, and I've had horrible power line noise the entire time. I had two power outages, Wednesday night and Thursday morning.

The first was the entire subdivision after a bad storm.

The second outage was from a dead pole pig. It was the original pig from when the subdivision was fist laid out in 1964. My home was the first one here. The old had PCB oil in it, so they carefully lowered it to eye level. A very thick plastic bag, and a thick adsorbent pad was pulled up over it, and another pad was laid in the bed of their bucket truck before it was swung over and down into position.

I was told that they used to rebuild these transformers until a few years ago but 55 years of service in a high lightning area is pretty good.

I was pleasantly surprised that I could listen to a local AM station without a lot of 60Hz hash. It used to wipe out everything from 500KHz to 30 MHz. It's amazing that a damaged transformer lasted so long. I wonder what the inside of the can looked like?

Gone are the flickering lights, the multiple resets of my Internet radio every five or less minutes, and apparently it was affecting my cable modem and router. My typical download speed was around 17Mb/s I downloaded over a GB of files at around 38 Mb/s a few hours ago. I was streaming a TV station and listening to the Internet radio at the same time with no dropouts.

 

[Phil Hobbs]

On 2020-02-28 20:53, Michael Terrell wrote:

I have lived here for over 20 years, and I've had horrible power line
noise the entire time. I had two power outages, Wednesday night and
Thursday morning.

The first was the entire subdivision after a bad storm.

The second outage was from a dead pole pig. It was the original pig
from when the subdivision was fist laid out in 1964. My home was the
first one here. The old had PCB oil in it, so they carefully lowered
it to eye level. A very thick plastic bag, and a thick adsorbent pad
was pulled up over it, and another pad was laid in the bed of their
bucket truck before it was swung over and down into position.

I was told that they used to rebuild these transformers until a few
years ago but 55 years of service in a high lightning area is pretty
good.

I was pleasantly surprised that I could listen to a local AM station
without a lot of 60Hz hash. It used to wipe out everything from
500KHz to 30 MHz. It's amazing that a damaged transformer lasted so
long. I wonder what the inside of the can looked like?

Gone are the flickering lights, the multiple resets of my Internet
radio every five or less minutes, and apparently it was affecting my
cable modem and router. My typical download speed was around 17Mb/s I
downloaded over a GB of files at around 38 Mb/s a few hours ago. I
was streaming a TV station and listening to the Internet radio at the
same time with no dropouts.

Getting up to the 500,000th harmonic is impressive.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal Consultant
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC / Hobbs ElectroOptics
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510

http://electrooptical.net
http://hobbs-eo.com

 

[Rick C]

On Friday, February 28, 2020 at 8:53:39 PM UTC-5, Michael Terrell wrote:

I have lived here for over 20 years, and I've had horrible power line noise the entire time. I had two power outages, Wednesday night and Thursday morning.

The first was the entire subdivision after a bad storm.

The second outage was from a dead pole pig. It was the original pig from when the subdivision was fist laid out in 1964. My home was the first one here. The old had PCB oil in it, so they carefully lowered it to eye level. A very thick plastic bag, and a thick adsorbent pad was pulled up over it, and another pad was laid in the bed of their bucket truck before it was swung over and down into position.

I was told that they used to rebuild these transformers until a few years ago but 55 years of service in a high lightning area is pretty good.

I was pleasantly surprised that I could listen to a local AM station without a lot of 60Hz hash. It used to wipe out everything from 500KHz to 30 MHz. It's amazing that a damaged transformer lasted so long. I wonder what the inside of the can looked like?

Gone are the flickering lights, the multiple resets of my Internet radio every five or less minutes, and apparently it was affecting my cable modem and router. My typical download speed was around 17Mb/s I downloaded over a GB of files at around 38 Mb/s a few hours ago. I was streaming a TV station and listening to the Internet radio at the same time with no dropouts.

Ham operators talk about problems with this sort of noise being very common.. Sometimes it sucks to be a ham.

--

Rick C.

- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Saturday, February 29, 2020 at 12:57:57 PM UTC+11, Phil Hobbs wrote:

On 2020-02-28 20:53, Michael Terrell wrote:
I have lived here for over 20 years, and I've had horrible power line
noise the entire time. I had two power outages, Wednesday night and
Thursday morning.

The first was the entire subdivision after a bad storm.

The second outage was from a dead pole pig. It was the original pig
from when the subdivision was fist laid out in 1964. My home was the
first one here. The old had PCB oil in it, so they carefully lowered
it to eye level. A very thick plastic bag, and a thick adsorbent pad
was pulled up over it, and another pad was laid in the bed of their
bucket truck before it was swung over and down into position.

I was told that they used to rebuild these transformers until a few
years ago but 55 years of service in a high lightning area is pretty
good.

I was pleasantly surprised that I could listen to a local AM station
without a lot of 60Hz hash. It used to wipe out everything from
500KHz to 30 MHz. It's amazing that a damaged transformer lasted so
long. I wonder what the inside of the can looked like?

Gone are the flickering lights, the multiple resets of my Internet
radio every five or less minutes, and apparently it was affecting my
cable modem and router. My typical download speed was around 17Mb/s I
downloaded over a GB of files at around 38 Mb/s a few hours ago. I
was streaming a TV station and listening to the Internet radio at the
same time with no dropouts.


Getting up to the 500,000th harmonic is impressive.

Spark discharges produce pretty impressive spikes.

Once the voltage is high enough to start an avalanche, the current rises very rapidly. The glow to arc transition that follows isn't anything like as quick - you have to heat up the electron emitting surface enough to let it deform into lots of sharp-pointed field emitters - but the change in voltage drop at the emitting surface is only about 100V so it doesn't signify.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[boB]

On Fri, 28 Feb 2020 19:30:44 -0800 (PST), Rick C
<gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com> wrote:

On Friday, February 28, 2020 at 8:53:39 PM UTC-5, Michael Terrell wrote:
I have lived here for over 20 years, and I've had horrible power line noise the entire time. I had two power outages, Wednesday night and Thursday morning.

The first was the entire subdivision after a bad storm.

The second outage was from a dead pole pig. It was the original pig from when the subdivision was fist laid out in 1964. My home was the first one here. The old had PCB oil in it, so they carefully lowered it to eye level. A very thick plastic bag, and a thick adsorbent pad was pulled up over it, and another pad was laid in the bed of their bucket truck before it was swung over and down into position.

I was told that they used to rebuild these transformers until a few years ago but 55 years of service in a high lightning area is pretty good.

I was pleasantly surprised that I could listen to a local AM station without a lot of 60Hz hash. It used to wipe out everything from 500KHz to 30 MHz. It's amazing that a damaged transformer lasted so long. I wonder what the inside of the can looked like?

Gone are the flickering lights, the multiple resets of my Internet radio every five or less minutes, and apparently it was affecting my cable modem and router. My typical download speed was around 17Mb/s I downloaded over a GB of files at around 38 Mb/s a few hours ago. I was streaming a TV station and listening to the Internet radio at the same time with no dropouts.

Ham operators talk about problems with this sort of noise being very common. Sometimes it sucks to be a ham.

I wonder if the HF noise is like Bill said, from discharge ? I have
heard that pole transformers have caused wideband noise but I almost
didn't believe it.

I am surprised that if there are arcs that more trouble doesn't
happen.

 

[Michael Terrell]

On Friday, February 28, 2020 at 8:57:57 PM UTC-5, Phil Hobbs wrote:

On 2020-02-28 20:53, Michael Terrell wrote:
I have lived here for over 20 years, and I've had horrible power line
noise the entire time. I had two power outages, Wednesday night and
Thursday morning.

The first was the entire subdivision after a bad storm.

The second outage was from a dead pole pig. It was the original pig
from when the subdivision was fist laid out in 1964. My home was the
first one here. The old had PCB oil in it, so they carefully lowered
it to eye level. A very thick plastic bag, and a thick adsorbent pad
was pulled up over it, and another pad was laid in the bed of their
bucket truck before it was swung over and down into position.

I was told that they used to rebuild these transformers until a few
years ago but 55 years of service in a high lightning area is pretty
good.

I was pleasantly surprised that I could listen to a local AM station
without a lot of 60Hz hash. It used to wipe out everything from
500KHz to 30 MHz. It's amazing that a damaged transformer lasted so
long. I wonder what the inside of the can looked like?

Gone are the flickering lights, the multiple resets of my Internet
radio every five or less minutes, and apparently it was affecting my
cable modem and router. My typical download speed was around 17Mb/s I
downloaded over a GB of files at around 38 Mb/s a few hours ago. I
was streaming a TV station and listening to the Internet radio at the
same time with no dropouts.


Getting up to the 500,000th harmonic is impressive.

The old four foot Florescent lamps were even more impressive. They emitted RF at over 4 GHz. Ii used to repair LNAs and LNBs in my home shop. A quick test was to connect it to a receiver and point it at the ceiling. The noise pattern on the bench monitor would change from random noise, to modulated noise. You could even see the signal level change on my test receiver.

 

[Michael Terrell]

On Saturday, February 29, 2020 at 2:50:07 AM UTC-5, upsid...@downunder.com wrote:

On Fri, 28 Feb 2020 17:53:36 -0800 (PST), Michael Terrell wrote:

I have lived here for over 20 years, and I've had horrible power line noise the entire time. I had two power outages, Wednesday night and Thursday morning.

The first was the entire subdivision after a bad storm.

The second outage was from a dead pole pig. It was the original pig from when the subdivision was fist laid out in 1964. My home was the first one here. The old had PCB oil in it, so they carefully lowered it to eye level. A very thick plastic bag, and a thick adsorbent pad was pulled up over it, and another pad was laid in the bed of their bucket truck before it was swung over and down into position.

I was told that they used to rebuild these transformers until a few years ago but 55 years of service in a high lightning area is pretty good.

I was pleasantly surprised that I could listen to a local AM station without a lot of 60Hz hash. It used to wipe out everything from 500KHz to 30 MHz. It's amazing that a damaged transformer lasted so long. I wonder what the inside of the can looked like?

Did you test the AM receiver in Wednesday or Thursday, i.e. during a
larger blackout or when your local pig failed ?

With a huge number of pigs all over the place, a very dense NV (medium
voltage 14 kV ?) network is required to feed them. If the MV network
is open wire, there are also a huge number of insulators. Dirty or
faulty insulators are known to produce a lot of RF noise and also
consume some mains power. If you can pinpoint an exact faulty
insulator, this might also interest the power company and they will
replace the insulator, before it fails completely.

It is unlikely that the pig itself generates RF, but of course if the
primary side insulator is faulty...

Prior to the pig being replaced, the only time I could use AM was during power outages, or after a hurricane. It wasn't dirty insulators, since it was the same before, during and after rain.

 

On Fri, 28 Feb 2020 17:53:36 -0800 (PST), Michael Terrell
<terrell.michael.a@gmail.com> wrote:

I have lived here for over 20 years, and I've had horrible power line noise the entire time. I had two power outages, Wednesday night and Thursday morning.

The first was the entire subdivision after a bad storm.

The second outage was from a dead pole pig. It was the original pig from when the subdivision was fist laid out in 1964. My home was the first one here. The old had PCB oil in it, so they carefully lowered it to eye level. A very thick plastic bag, and a thick adsorbent pad was pulled up over it, and another pad was laid in the bed of their bucket truck before it was swung over and down into position.

I was told that they used to rebuild these transformers until a few years ago but 55 years of service in a high lightning area is pretty good.

I was pleasantly surprised that I could listen to a local AM station without a lot of 60Hz hash. It used to wipe out everything from 500KHz to 30 MHz. It's amazing that a damaged transformer lasted so long. I wonder what the inside of the can looked like?

Did you test the AM receiver in Wednesday or Thursday, i.e. during a
larger blackout or when your local pig failed ?

With a huge number of pigs all over the place, a very dense NV (medium
voltage 14 kV ?) network is required to feed them. If the MV network
is open wire, there are also a huge number of insulators. Dirty or
faulty insulators are known to produce a lot of RF noise and also
consume some mains power. If you can pinpoint an exact faulty
insulator, this might also interest the power company and they will
replace the insulator, before it fails completely.

It is unlikely that the pig itself generates RF, but of course if the
primary side insulator is faulty...

 

upsidedown@downunder.com wrote in
news:ed4k5fpb065uu7t211rgvdgalissm043up@4ax.com:

On Fri, 28 Feb 2020 17:53:36 -0800 (PST), Michael Terrell
terrell.michael.a@gmail.com> wrote:

I have lived here for over 20 years, and I've had horrible power
line noise the entire time. I had two power outages, Wednesday
night and Thursday morning.

The first was the entire subdivision after a bad storm.

The second outage was from a dead pole pig. It was the original
pig from when the subdivision was fist laid out in 1964. My
home was the first one here. The old had PCB oil in it, so they
carefully lowered it to eye level. A very thick plastic bag,
and a thick adsorbent pad was pulled up over it, and another
pad was laid in the bed of their bucket truck before it was
swung over and down into position.

I was told that they used to rebuild these transformers until a
few years ago but 55 years of service in a high lightning area
is pretty good.

I was pleasantly surprised that I could listen to a local AM
station without a lot of 60Hz hash. It used to wipe out
everything from 500KHz to 30 MHz. It's amazing that a damaged
transformer lasted so long. I wonder what the inside of the can
looked like?

Did you test the AM receiver in Wednesday or Thursday, i.e. during
a larger blackout or when your local pig failed ?

With a huge number of pigs all over the place, a very dense NV
(medium voltage 14 kV ?) network is required to feed them. If the
MV network is open wire, there are also a huge number of
insulators. Dirty or faulty insulators are known to produce a lot
of RF noise and also consume some mains power. If you can pinpoint
an exact faulty insulator, this might also interest the power
company and they will replace the insulator, before it fails
completely.

It is unlikely that the pig itself generates RF, but of course if
the primary side insulator is faulty...

Just look at things with a thermal imager. That will show the
leakage.

I worked in IR thermometry back in the '80s, and made a rifle stock
and scope included IR scope thermometer that had a four inch tube and
Gold mirror. The power companies bought them to look at transformers
and insulators for heat without the need for a bucket truck
excursion.

Now they simply use an IR imager, which back then was $35k and in
'80s dollars that was a lot of fuckin' money for a 4fps 640 x 320
camera that required LN˛ in a cavity behind the sensor to work.

 

[mpm]

On Friday, February 28, 2020 at 8:53:39 PM UTC-5, Michael Terrell wrote:

As I'm sure you know, pole-mounted lightning arrestors also wreak havoc on RF receivers - well up into the 1900 MHz PCS band (though usually much worse in 600/700/800, of course). That's the majority of what I find, but of course I'm not usually working below 600 MHz, either. A bad arrestor clearly shows on a thermal camera. (But in substations, FPL uses a ultrasonic "camera". I don't know why? Something to do with corona, I suspect. (And we did have a case at a generator station once that the spectrum analyzer could easily see, but the ultrasonic gear didn't detect it.)

Speaking of power lines....
I also once got dispatched on a broadband uplink interference case that turned out to be a small length of wire (maybe 6") that somehow got wrapped around one of the phases and was just sitting there (this was medium voltage distribution). It was a LOT NOISIER than you might think! Of course, it was only a couple hundred feet from the cell site, and at about the same height, so that explains some of it. Maybe -60 dBm broadband? (The cell has high-gain antennas.)

Another (perplexing - at the time) dispatch involved a simple, plain-old CATV leak -- but it was mid-span on the overhead wires! Binoculars confirmed that some squirrels had eaten clean through to the inner conductor.

 

[mpm]

On Monday, March 2, 2020 at 10:49:13 PM UTC-5, mpm wrote:

Oh, and almost forgot another difficult interference case involving power poles:

This time, it was a solar-powered data collector that FPL had installed on several poles as a test. It was some sort of telemetry unit that had a small internal lead-acid battery and the solar cell kept it charged.

Well, long story short, FPL forgot it was on the pole.

Eventually, the battery won't hold a charge -- but about an hour after sunrise, has charged just enough for the associated transmitter to start broadcasting broadband crap. That lasts until about 1 PM, when, the Sun angle to the solar panel is no longer adequate, and the whole device eventually collapses -- until the next day!

Throw in a couple of overcast days (with no activity), and a short time window in which to detect the event is active (typically: 30-45 minute delay in processing), and an hour's drive in good traffic to get there... and well, you can see this was quite a challenge to identify and finally get it off the pole!

Not fun.

 

[Rick C]

On Monday, March 2, 2020 at 11:56:03 PM UTC-5, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

On Mon, 2 Mar 2020 19:49:08 -0800 (PST), mpm <mpmillard@aol.com
wrote:

On Friday, February 28, 2020 at 8:53:39 PM UTC-5, Michael Terrell wrote:

As I'm sure you know, pole-mounted lightning arrestors also wreak havoc on RF receivers - well up into the 1900 MHz PCS band (though usually much worse in 600/700/800, of course). That's the majority of what I find, but of course I'm not usually working below 600 MHz, either. A bad arrestor clearly shows on a thermal camera. (But in substations, FPL uses a ultrasonic "camera". I don't know why? Something to do with corona, I suspect. (And we did have a case at a generator station once that the spectrum analyzer could easily see, but the ultrasonic gear didn't detect it.)

Speaking of power lines....
I also once got dispatched on a broadband uplink interference case that turned out to be a small length of wire (maybe 6") that somehow got wrapped around one of the phases and was just sitting there (this was medium voltage distribution). It was a LOT NOISIER than you might think! Of course, it was only a couple hundred feet from the cell site, and at about the same height, so that explains some of it. Maybe -60 dBm broadband? (The cell has high-gain antennas.)

Another (perplexing - at the time) dispatch involved a simple, plain-old CATV leak -- but it was mid-span on the overhead wires! Binoculars confirmed that some squirrels had eaten clean through to the inner conductor.


Our internet died at the cabin in Truckee, and the cable TV got really
terrible.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/8b8mz7ppsnypjkz/Cable_Chewed.jpg?raw=1

Really, that braid and plastic don't look very tasty to me.

Apparently it's Haagen Dazs to squirrels.

--

Rick C.

+ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
+ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

On Mon, 2 Mar 2020 19:49:08 -0800 (PST), mpm <mpmillard@aol.com>
wrote:

On Friday, February 28, 2020 at 8:53:39 PM UTC-5, Michael Terrell wrote:

As I'm sure you know, pole-mounted lightning arrestors also wreak havoc on RF receivers - well up into the 1900 MHz PCS band (though usually much worse in 600/700/800, of course). That's the majority of what I find, but of course I'm not usually working below 600 MHz, either. A bad arrestor clearly shows on a thermal camera. (But in substations, FPL uses a ultrasonic "camera". I don't know why? Something to do with corona, I suspect. (And we did have a case at a generator station once that the spectrum analyzer could easily see, but the ultrasonic gear didn't detect it.)

Speaking of power lines....
I also once got dispatched on a broadband uplink interference case that turned out to be a small length of wire (maybe 6") that somehow got wrapped around one of the phases and was just sitting there (this was medium voltage distribution). It was a LOT NOISIER than you might think! Of course, it was only a couple hundred feet from the cell site, and at about the same height, so that explains some of it. Maybe -60 dBm broadband? (The cell has high-gain antennas.)

Another (perplexing - at the time) dispatch involved a simple, plain-old CATV leak -- but it was mid-span on the overhead wires! Binoculars confirmed that some squirrels had eaten clean through to the inner conductor.

Our internet died at the cabin in Truckee, and the cable TV got really
terrible.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/8b8mz7ppsnypjkz/Cable_Chewed.jpg?raw=1

Really, that braid and plastic don't look very tasty to me.





--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

The cork popped merrily, and Lord Peter rose to his feet.
"Bunter", he said, "I give you a toast. The triumph of Instinct over Reason"

 

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Mon, 2 Mar 2020 19:49:08 -0800 (PST), mpm <mpmillard@aol.com>
wrote:

Speaking of power lines....
I also once got dispatched on a broadband uplink interference
case that turned out to be a small length of wire (maybe 6")
that somehow got wrapped around one of the phases and was
just sitting there (this was medium voltage distribution).
It was a LOT NOISIER than you might think! Of course, it
was only a couple hundred feet from the cell site, and at
about the same height, so that explains some of it.
Maybe -60 dBm broadband? (The cell has high-gain antennas.)

I'm jealous. You get to have all the fun. A marginally related power
line noise story:

In about 2001, on the left coast, Sprint made what initially looked
like a mutually beneficial deal with PG&E (Pacific Gas and Electric).
They would use the PG&E transmission towers as cell site antennas in
trade for tower lease payments. Sprint would save money by not having
to build new towers and not having to deal directly with the various
municipal planning departments. Of course, neither party bothered to
ask their RF people if it would work.

Examples of two such installations from 2002:
<http://802.11junk.com/cellular/jeffl/SVLY-PGE/index.html>
<http://802.11junk.com/cellular/rich/PaulSweetPGandE/index.html>

These cell sites were PCS (1900 MHz) only with all the electronics on
the ground. That means about 300 ft of 7/8 hard line between the
radios and the antennas for about a 6dB loss which is huge and
translates into a range loss of about 50% in both transmit and
receive.

In an odd way, these loses were beneficial because the losses covered
up the power line noise from the nearby HV power lines. When someone
tried a TMA (tower mounted amplifier), it was impossible to
communicate over the power line noise. Predictably, the range was
about the same as with the coax cable losses. So, the choice was an
expensive TMA or cheaper coax cable for identical but insufficient
range. Sprint chose the cheapest. It's much like that today. The
same systems are still running on some local PG&E towers with maybe a
few more panels for added frequency bands. Sprint range and coverage
still sucks but is largely hidden from customers because of a mutual
roaming agreement with Verizon, which also uses 1900 MHz and CDMA, but
not from PG&E power transmission towers.

So, what does this have to do with transformer noise? Part of the
initial agreement for the use of the PG&E towers was for PG&E to
replace or repair any of their equipment that produced interference to
the Sprint radios. It turned out that some of the RF noise was coming
from pole mounted transformers from nearby low voltage residential and
industrial systems. No sooner had Sprint identified these source, the
transformers were replaced by PG&E. We actually had a fairly clean RF
environment for a few years, when the agreement was revised and the RF
noise clause was removed.

--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

 

[Dave Platt]

In article <c20faac4-340c-4614-a682-170cef86f3d6@googlegroups.com>,
Rick C <gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com> wrote:

Really, that braid and plastic don't look very tasty to me.

Apparently it's Haagen Dazs to squirrels.

In the 20-some years we've owned our house, the local squirrels have
managed to chew through the power-line neutral wire from the pole-pig.

Twice.

Having high voltage in the house due to an open neutral is not fun.
Fortunately there was no damage either time.

 

Sounds like it went feral

 

[mpm]

On Wednesday, March 4, 2020 at 7:06:19 AM UTC-5, Michael Terrell wrote:
> Rodent damage to CATV hardline more common than you would expect. Especially > in colder climates. It was a big problem for us, near Cincinnati, back in the '80s.

Woodpeckers can be a problem too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZkAP-CQlhA

 

[Michael Terrell]

On Tuesday, March 3, 2020 at 12:08:18 AM UTC-5, Rick C wrote:

Apparently it's Haagen Dazs to squirrels.

Apparently you are as clueless as ever.

 

[Michael Terrell]

On Monday, March 2, 2020 at 11:56:03 PM UTC-5, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

On Mon, 2 Mar 2020 19:49:08 -0800 (PST), mpm wrote:

On Friday, February 28, 2020 at 8:53:39 PM UTC-5, Michael Terrell wrote:

As I'm sure you know, pole-mounted lightning arrestors also wreak havoc on RF receivers - well up into the 1900 MHz PCS band (though usually much worse in 600/700/800, of course). That's the majority of what I find, but of course I'm not usually working below 600 MHz, either. A bad arrestor clearly shows on a thermal camera. (But in substations, FPL uses a ultrasonic "camera". I don't know why? Something to do with corona, I suspect. (And we did have a case at a generator station once that the spectrum analyzer could easily see, but the ultrasonic gear didn't detect it.)

Speaking of power lines....
I also once got dispatched on a broadband uplink interference case that turned out to be a small length of wire (maybe 6") that somehow got wrapped around one of the phases and was just sitting there (this was medium voltage distribution). It was a LOT NOISIER than you might think! Of course, it was only a couple hundred feet from the cell site, and at about the same height, so that explains some of it. Maybe -60 dBm broadband? (The cell has high-gain antennas.)

Another (perplexing - at the time) dispatch involved a simple, plain-old CATV leak -- but it was mid-span on the overhead wires! Binoculars confirmed that some squirrels had eaten clean through to the inner conductor.


Our internet died at the cabin in Truckee, and the cable TV got really
terrible.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/8b8mz7ppsnypjkz/Cable_Chewed.jpg?raw=1

Really, that braid and plastic don't look very tasty to me.

They chew it to sharpen their teeth.

 

[Michael Terrell]

On Monday, March 2, 2020 at 10:49:13 PM UTC-5, mpm wrote:

On Friday, February 28, 2020 at 8:53:39 PM UTC-5, Michael Terrell wrote:

As I'm sure you know, pole-mounted lightning arrestors also wreak havoc on RF receivers - well up into the 1900 MHz PCS band (though usually much worse in 600/700/800, of course). That's the majority of what I find, but of course I'm not usually working below 600 MHz, either. A bad arrestor clearly shows on a thermal camera. (But in substations, FPL uses a ultrasonic "camera". I don't know why? Something to do with corona, I suspect. (And we did have a case at a generator station once that the spectrum analyzer could easily see, but the ultrasonic gear didn't detect it.)

Speaking of power lines....
I also once got dispatched on a broadband uplink interference case that turned out to be a small length of wire (maybe 6") that somehow got wrapped around one of the phases and was just sitting there (this was medium voltage distribution). It was a LOT NOISIER than you might think! Of course, it was only a couple hundred feet from the cell site, and at about the same height, so that explains some of it. Maybe -60 dBm broadband? (The cell has high-gain antennas.)

Another (perplexing - at the time) dispatch involved a simple, plain-old CATV leak -- but it was mid-span on the overhead wires! Binoculars confirmed that some squirrels had eaten clean through to the inner conductor.

Rodent damage to CATV hardline more common than you would expect. Especially in colder climates. It was a big problem for us, near Cincinnati, back in the '80s.