30 db of electrical noise

[lonestarbandit]

So guys,

I hate to ask in here because we will go through all the are you grounded etc but I'm at wits end. (Yes I am grounded, solid copper wire to copper plated ground rod rammed 8 feet down)

I put up a new station after nearly 20 year hiatus, re-bought all the stuff I stupidly sold back then. But my residential home has power lines 60 feet away and from day one its 30 db pulsing noise on all channels on AM. To the point I bought an expensive DSP ham speaker just to make the radio usable on its max noise reduction setting. So here is what I've done.

Toroidal choke on coax out of radio - no improvement.
Snap on ferites on everything else. Speaker wires, power wires more on coax - no improvement.

low pass filter - no improvement.

Tested radio on battery to eliminate possible p/s issues - no improvement.

Nothing has any effect on this monstrous noise.

Swapped jumpers till I lost my mind - no change.

RCI 2950CD
Turner plus three mic
Kl 203p
Hear it DSP speaker
Dosy Test center
Max2000 antenna
Mini 8x coax - I know but I dont want a huge hole through my brick house and there was a satellite cable there I ripped out we werent using ran the 8x through it.

Any ideas? I'm fresh out. DSP on MAX makes it bearable but meter is useless with all this racket.

 

[sp5it]

Put breakers in your house down, check for any change. Radio on battery ofc.

 

[lonestarbandit]

I'm afraid I may have found a large part of it.
And there's nothing I can do about it.
My Wi-Fi Router. Still noisy recieve but the router is the source of the horrible hum/buzz.
Its nowhere near the radio its in another part of the house ....

 

[Dr_DX]

Maybe try this:
https://surgestop.com/filter-products/m-411cb.html

The low pass with attenuate only signals above 30Mhz whereas a bandpass will attenuate above and below the band. Check out the bandpass chart for the10 meter bandpass to get some idea of effectiveness.

If that doesn't work, then it is time to go pig hunting...pole pig that is...

 

[Dr_DX]

I'm afraid I may have found a large part of it.
And there's nothing I can do about it.
My Wi-Fi Router. Still noisy recieve but the router is the source of the horrible hum/buzz.
Its nowhere near the radio its in another part of the house ....

wrap it in foil (except the antenna/s) and ground the foil. If you have any Ethernet cables plugged into it and the power cord, put ferrite on them.

 

[Big Kahuna]

Cheap power supply on a device can do crazy stuff. I've told the story here a 100 times but 10 years ago had really strong noise on my base just wiping out everything. Electric company actually sent a specialist out with sniffer to help find the noise, it was in the power lines but not coming from my house, we searched out front, in the street, all the houses in that cul de sac and then went to the next street behind and found a house where the noise was really strong, guy let us inside and noise got crazy strong in his office, it was a paper shedder in standby mode, turned it off and noise just disappeared. Crazy that one stupid device could create that much noise in the underground powerlines in the entire neighborhood. He agreed to only turn it on when he needed it but 2 days later the noise was back and on for good. Luckily they moved 2 months later and the noise was gone. I moved shortly after anyway but shows what can happen!

 

[lonestarbandit]

oh hell that's not terribly encouraging lol. I'm gonna ferrite and foil this thing but as the antenna are the emitters I'm not expecting success.... Its not the wall wart as if I disconnect the power from router while still plugged in the noise still vanishes but I'll try everything.

 

[Slowmover]

oh hell that's not terribly encouraging lol. I'm gonna ferrite and foil this thing but as the antenna are the emitters I'm not expecting success.... Its not the wall wart as if I disconnect the power from router while still plugged in the noise still vanishes but I'll try everything.

Here’s encouragement sent your way to do as Mike suggests and shut off the house at the circuit-beaker panel.

Those circuits not labeled (if such is the case) are the “goal” of the day: Furtherance in making that house your home.

“Electricity” went from being servant to master in or before the lifetimes of everyone here. Time to map its reach.

WiFi router or not I’ll bet it ISN’T the only contributing “noise” factor.

Circuit labels are how one tests a hunch: the second layer is the number of outlets per circuit and on what wall of what room.

A recent (decent) thread on QRZ concerned the total loss of a ham shack and it’s gear (electrical fire) where the owner documents the causes and re-build.

As with vehicles there’s no substitute for the mental map of the layout.

Are you & yours residing therein worth the effort? (We won’t spill the beans that, “the assignment, lone star bandit, should you choose to accept it”) is more in the way of fun versus “work”.

Of course, should you choose to wear your WWDX propeller beanie while walking about with label-maker and RF Sniffer in hand, the others may not accept the idea that this entails great effort in logic.

.

 

[lonestarbandit]

Here’s encouragement sent your way to do as Mike suggests and shut off the house at the circuit-beaker panel.

Those circuits not labeled (if such is the case) are the “goal” of the day: Furtherance in making that house your home.

“Electricity” went from being servant to master in or before the lifetimes of everyone here. Time to map its reach.

WiFi router or not I’ll bet it ISN’T the only contributing “noise” factor.

Circuit labels are how one tests a hunch: the second layer is the number of outlets per circuit and on what wall of what room.

A recent (decent) thread on QRZ concerned the total loss of a ham shack and it’s gear (electrical fire) where the owner documents the causes and re-build.

As with vehicles there’s no substitute for the mental map of the layout.

Are you & yours residing therein worth the effort? (We won’t spill the beans that, “the assignment, lone star bandit, should you choose to accept it”) is more in the way of fun versus “work”.

Of course, should you choose to wear your WWDX propeller beanie while walking about with label-maker and RF Sniffer in hand, the others may not accept the idea that this entails great effort in logic.

.

No. It isn't the only RFI but it IS the buzzing hum portion. There is still the 30db on the meter to find of just noise. Who would have thought wifi was partially the culprit. Maybe there IS something to people concerned about 5g idk.

 

[AudioShockwav]

I'm afraid I may have found a large part of it.
And there's nothing I can do about it.
My Wi-Fi Router. ...

Things I would try:

I would call my service provider and tell them them the router is broken.
( at this point I could interject several things that might cause it to break)
Rather than lose a valuable paying customer I bet they send out a new one.

Or

Call them and complain about the noise, tell them it is causing interference to another device, which it must not do if it is in compliance with FCC certification.
I would be a royal pain in the ass with your provider.
They provided you with a crappy device that is causing a problem.

73
Jeff

 

[86lidewell]

LED lights? LED Light strips? LED Light strip power supplies?
Disable WiFi in your service provider CPE and buy your own Wireless access point to provide your WiFi.
I use Ubiquity WAPs.
Go Ethernet.

 

[Dr_DX]

oh hell that's not terribly encouraging lol. I'm gonna ferrite and foil this thing but as the antenna are the emitters I'm not expecting success.... Its not the wall wart as if I disconnect the power from router while still plugged in the noise still vanishes but I'll try everything.

Your Wi-Fi antennas should be TXing @ 2.4Ghz & 5Ghz. If the RF amplifier is that bad (spurious emissions), it may be time to consider a new Wi-Fi router...just sayin'.

Here a guy had the same problem but in reverse (his RF was getting into the Wi-Fi router). He used Copper screen and made a Faraday shield around it and that worked well.

https://www.instructables.com/Shield-Your-Wireless-RouterModem-From-RF-Energy/

Also check out these solutions:
http://www.hamuniverse.com/linksys.html

"BEST Solution.....get a well known brand in a metal case (grounded) with shielded CAT cables if possible with known good shielding all around! Simple as that.

Good Luck
Dr_DX

 

[AudioShockwav]

Years ago.
There was this guy, lived in a apartment , an he was a ham.
Even though he was using the rain gutter system at the complex for working the hf bands he never heard a complaint.
Time passes.
C***** came out and reworked a bunch of cable tv equipment on the building he was in,
and his noise floor jumped up.
A lot.
Many phone calls with C***** service reps yielded no joy.
Anyway
The problem got solved one day, seems this guy somehow mixed up his coax cables.
He feed rf from his Yaesu, Ameritron , and legal limit tuner into the 75 ohm cable coming in from C*****
Oops.
When he realised his mistake, he hooked back up to the rain gutter and
was surprised that the noise was gone!

C***** came back out the next day and after several hours fixed the cable tv, it was out in the whole building.
Noise never came back.

Must have hooked the ground the second time.


We moved after that.

73
Jeff

 

[lonestarbandit]

The damn router is a year old shielded. Well known brand and 350 bucks high performance tri band mu-mimo model as I need the speed/power working from home currently due to COVID nonsense. Not sure I want to dump it. But that said the buzzing is insane so guess I'll have to cough up more money lol

 

[lonestarbandit]

LED lights? LED Light strips? LED Light strip power supplies?
Disable WiFi in your service provider CPE and buy your own Wireless access point to provide your WiFi.
I use Ubiquity WAPs.
Go Ethernet.

All the gear is my own including the modem, router and extender. All the company owns is the line to the house. It has been narrowed down to the damn router at this point which is humming like a maniac across all 40. Bizzare. At this point I've blown probably 2,000 getting back into radio whats another 350 I suppose. Plus side I can justify upgrading to 802.11ax lol. Pity it isn't being even spent on radio gear though. Hopefully not the difference between life and death when wife finds out.