Scary Anomaly

[Greg T]

This is downright ugly. I've always had noise in my radio, usually about 3 to 4S units that I had to deal with. Even when everyone says they're dead silent, mine has noise. I've learned to live with it. A few days ago my radio actually went nearly silent with everyone elses. Hard for me to believe but I enjoyed that evening of quiet talking. Then, a couple of days ago, EVERYONE was complaining of 7 to 9 S units of noise. O)ne guy in the group follows the sunspot page and said there was just some solar activity and it should be gone in a day or two. Well, last night we fired up, I've got a tad over 7 Units, and I made the statement that the damn noise wasn't gone yet. Everyone else thought I was nuts until I made a video to show them. They all had ZERO noise, none, nada, zilch. I could not even hear a guy that is about 5 miles from me. Well, I could tell someone was talking, but couldn't understand him well. He has a good rig. My question is; Has anyone seen anything THIS isolated, or localized where it goes from zero to useless in 5 miles or less? I have no idea what to do, if it's suddenly me or conditions. I have not changed anything in the house, and I've unplugging different things, but I'm pretty sure it's not in the power line. If I remove the coax it goes dead silent.

 

[Crawdad]

Neighbors close?

 

[secret squirrel]

Bear with me on this. You may have already checked it. I had this happen to me. It very similar to what you describe. My ex-wife used a cheap multi outlet put strip with USB ports. When she plugged in the charging cable for her Iphone it created a 5 S unit noise floor. Pull out the charger cable and SHAZAM- no noise. Also, at my previous residence, I was using a simple 1/2 Wave GP antenna and i would get a 1-2 S unit low level constant static. I did not think much of it, but I was checking my antenna one day and notice the copper ground wire was loose and the ground rod clamp. When I tightened it back up- then noise was gone. All just my observations that I am sure you may have checked at one time. The USB charge really stumped me.

 

[TM86]

This is downright ugly. I've always had noise in my radio, usually about 3 to 4S units that I had to deal with. Even when everyone says they're dead silent, mine has noise. I've learned to live with it. A few days ago my radio actually went nearly silent with everyone elses. Hard for me to believe but I enjoyed that evening of quiet talking. Then, a couple of days ago, EVERYONE was complaining of 7 to 9 S units of noise. O)ne guy in the group follows the sunspot page and said there was just some solar activity and it should be gone in a day or two. Well, last night we fired up, I've got a tad over 7 Units, and I made the statement that the damn noise wasn't gone yet. Everyone else thought I was nuts until I made a video to show them. They all had ZERO noise, none, nada, zilch. I could not even hear a guy that is about 5 miles from me. Well, I could tell someone was talking, but couldn't understand him well. He has a good rig. My question is; Has anyone seen anything THIS isolated, or localized where it goes from zero to useless in 5 miles or less? I have no idea what to do, if it's suddenly me or conditions. I have not changed anything in the house, and I've unplugging different things, but I'm pretty sure it's not in the power line. If I remove the coax it goes dead silent.

If you have a walkie-talkie you could take a walk around the neighborhood looking for noise. As the noise gets louder shorten the antenna. Sooner or later you'll end up within a few houses of whoever is running the noisy LED lights for their indoor pot farm.

 

[Greg T]

If you have a walkie-talkie you could take a walk around the neighborhood looking for noise. As the noise gets louder shorten the antenna. Sooner or later you'll end up within a few houses of whoever is running the noisy LED lights for their indoor pot farm.

I did it around my house and I've got noise everywhere. Pointing at the furnace makes noise, pointing at the TV makes noise, pointing at the breaker panel makes noise, there's just no end. There's no way to pinpoint the exactly what it is.

 

[Greg T]

Neighbors close?

Yeah, neighbors are close but using the handheld they don't make any more noise than I've got at home. It's hard to pinpoint if I hold the handheld up vertically, but held on the flat side I can point right at different items and they all make noise.

 

[Cable Guy]

If you have that much noise all over your house with a ht, I would check the service ground at your house meter base.

 

[Onelasttime]

Have you checked the power in your home and at the power service pole?

Any neighbors with solar panels and cheap inverters?

Does it get quite when the power goes out indicating a bad pole transformer?

A lot of old Fords or Harley Davidsons running around your area?

The appliances in your home can toss a lot of noise into your homes power!

Atmospherics would affect large swaths based on your location on the Earth so your friends and neighbors in the area you live would all be experincing the same condition.

Lastly how many non-Stryker 955's have you checked against under the same conditions at the time of the phenomonon(sp)?

Oh how about your power supply? Linear or switcher have you tried testing this under battery only power?

 

[Blackcat630]

Connect your stryker to a battery. Shut off all breakers. Begin bringing them on one by one. If the noise suddenly appears you have it narrowed down.

 

[Johnny Mullet]

I had noise all around my house. Used a handheld and walked around the property and found the only quiet spot on the land. I put my tower there on that spot and have zero noise issues, but the antenna is 60 feet from the house.

 

[Greg T]

Have you checked the power in your home and at the power service pole?

Any neighbors with solar panels and cheap inverters?

Does it get quite when the power goes out indicating a bad pole transformer?

A lot of old Fords or Harley Davidsons running around your area?

The appliances in your home can toss a lot of noise into your homes power!

Atmospherics would affect large swaths based on your location on the Earth so your friends and neighbors in the area you live would all be experincing the same condition.

Lastly how many non-Stryker 955's have you checked against under the same conditions at the time of the phenomonon(sp)?

Oh how about your power supply? Linear or switcher have you tried testing this under battery only power?

I haven't done the power cut in the house yet because I'm not getting the 60hz noise. If it is a power issue it has to be a very high frequency because the noise is like white noise, or pink noise, etc. It's hash that you would hear on any given noisy day on radio.

I've had quite a few Strykers on the bench over the last few years and they were all the same. I've not tried a different one since the noise increase. I will do that today, since I have a spare on the shelf. What baffles me is that this happened precisely at the same time the noise hit everyone else. We all dealt with it for a couple of days. Then, my two buddies cleared up and mine didn't.

If I go outside with the hand held and use it on the flat side I can point at things and make it extremely loud. Then again, I can turn in circles and find dead silent spots. Everything I point the antenna at makes loud hash noise. My issue is that I've had all these things in my house since I've moved here 23 years ago. It's just suddenly twice as strong.

Connect your stryker to a battery. Shut off all breakers. Begin bringing them on one by one. If the noise suddenly appears you have it narrowed down.

I am going to try this today. My wife has been bucking this idea because of the timers and clocks that would need to be reset. But it's the only way to tell if it's me or not.

 

[Smokinone]

If you have a "Smart Meter" for your power meter, it could cause issues as well, it may be going south as they say.



Loose connections inside the breaker panel also may cause some arching and noise.
I installed one of these Perfect Power Box units at my beaker panel, more for stray RF and whole house line conditioning. Not trying to sell, but according to the meters I tested with it works. I have had mine installed since JAN 2020. A lot of info on these on youtube etc. I went for the heavy duty model as my neighbor has a Solar panel array on his roof.

 

[Greg T]

I have a video I made last Tuesday so my buddies could hear the noise. Please excuse the pieces of language in here. This wasn't really meant to be posted here, but I want everyone to hear the hash, not pulses. The guy talking is usually perfectly clear and cuts right over the noise. He's about 5 miles away on a Stryker with a SP-500 @ about 40'

LANGUAGE ALERT

 

[Lkaskel]

Connect your stryker to a battery. Shut off all breakers. Begin bringing them on one by one. If the noise suddenly appears you have it narrowed down.

Greg,
I had to do this at my home. One day, unexplainably, I was getting 6 S-units of noise and my “normal” is less than 1. It was a hash (vs a pulse) similar to your video. My radio is on a UPS so I just shut the main breaker off and saw what would happen. The noise went away. I turned off all of the breakers and then turned on the main breaker. I then turned on one at a time and don’t you know, one circuit was causing it. For me the issue was an outdoor LED light. Something happened to it and even though it still turned on it developed that noise. I replaced the light and all has been good. Of course, I too had to reset a few clocks like the stove and microwave…..

Best of luck!!

 

[secret squirrel]

I had almost forgot. I was having troubles with my inline Watt Meter not reading correctly. I am too retro at times. Still using an old Radio Shack inline. I put an ugly balum at the feed point on my antenna and another at the point that the coax enters my home and my inline base and portable watt meters match up well. also lowered static. I am just using a homemade vertical dipole as a base antenna. I made the dipole legs with Firestik 7 footers. Bottom leg about 45 degrees out.