Primary RFI (Power Line Related Interference) located in very short time by Orlando of FP&L

Thank You to Orlando of Florida Power and Light, who came out today and in very very short time located the primary Power Line Interference being experienced at my location.

Orlando had in his arsenal the following gear that I have seen:

See: http://www.arrl.org/tis/info/HTML/pwr-line-noise/ch5.html

Very similar to, or the same as:

Model 240 RFI Locator

* See also on: http://www.arrl.org/tis/info/HTML/pwr-line-noise/ch5.html

Figures 9A and B. The Radar Engineers Model M330 professional grade Mini RFI Locator. Very similar to, or the same as this, was used today here on site by Orlando of FP&L. With this directional antenna and receiver capability it was possible to determine the direction that the interference signal was coming from, and what directions it was NOT coming from. And to also tell what radio wave polorization (horizontal or vertical) it had. This made locating the source, across a major city roadway north of my premises, a very easy task taking very minimal time.

See also Figure 11, a Radar Engineers Model 250 Parabolic Pinpointer. This device, or very similar, was also used to verify and pinpoint on the utility pole the source and along with binoculars to the likely actual culprit component causing the noise.

Note: I walked with Orlando during this. And at the pole I could actually hear electrical arcing from up on the pole. It turns out to be very likely a clamp and a wire, where the wire has broken off - possibly due to a lightning strike - swaying in the wind. Orlando will pass this on to the Line Department to come out and fix it.

* And that’s the end. Thanks again to Orlando and FP&L for a job well done. Now they have to come out and fix the hardware that has been located to eliminate the RFI Noise Problem. I would just like to say that FP&L has been very fast and very responsive to my RFI Report. And I couldn’t have gotten a better guy to come have a look at it than Orlando. Very professional, very courteous, and very knowledgeable in this stuff.

—

Alan Spicer - KA4UDX

Alan Spicer Marine Telecom

http://www.marinetelecom.net and http://www.wifiyacht.net

http://blog.marinetelecom.net

+1 954-683-3426

communications (at) marinetelecom.net

This entry was posted on 11. January 2010 at 22:42 and is filed under Main. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.