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What is the worst source of RFI you have ever encountered?

Moleculo

Moleculo

Ham Radio Nerd
Apr 14, 2002
9,200
1,686
283
I think I've discovered the worst source of RFI I've ever encountered. Last night I hooked up a vehicle battery charger to my RV parked in the driveway and put it in the "recondition" cycle. The damn charger wiped out all HF communications in my receiver below 10 meters. I don't think I've experienced anything quite that bad before!
 

A neighbor of mine uses a tig/mig welder every once in a while, just a few houses away. But when he is on it - it sounds like I'm right in the room where he is welding. S-9 or greater - at that . . .
 
One of the kids remote control toys that operated on 49 MHz. It got thrown into the toybox and a button got jammed. It QRM'ed the entire 6m band during a nice opening. I was ready to kill the neighbor until I realized that my six element yagi was pointed straight OVER MY OWN HOUSE as well as at his.
:headbang


Then there is the switching power supply in the dryer.S-9 everywhere below 20m. :censored:
 
Guy about 1500 feet away and his model railroad. His speed control was DC to daylight. The neighbors were blaming me (the guy with the big antenna). I easily convinced the folks with the torches and pitchforks, and we determined the signal was coming from due south, so we took a portable AM radio - one that has a signal strength indicator - and followed the S-meter.

The "engineer" allowed as how he could only play with his train when his wife went shopping and wasn't watching TV. Some heavy duty filtering and bypassing calmed everything back down again.
 
Just had someone move into the house behind me which has been vacant for some time. Hopefully they won't have a plasma TV. Otherwise I had a broken power line insulator a few years ago wreak havoc starting about 2 days after the last rain until it dried out. Power company fixed that and all has been well. Other than that is the normal high noise floor of living in town.
 
My neighbours damned plasma TV's!
I have 3 neighbours, all of whom have at least 2 plasma TV's.
DC to 2Metres is toast!
Now all I need to get happening is get ACMA (Australia's version of the FCC) to ban plasma TV's like the EU has done.
Unlikely to happen though.
However, it does give me great delight to shut em all down with a signal in the 20M band overloading their power supplies. :)
That's some small recompense I suppose.
 
I had a strange one last year.
i was getting rf on different areas of the hf bands. sometimes strong 7 db+. sometimes would only be 3db.
I eventually figured out ,it was my multiplug power strip that i use to turn everything off when i am done using the radios.
I replaced that ,now everything is fine.:confused:
 
I dont know but one of my neighbors is doing something that hammers me once and awhile. Im thinking its the Farm out behind us maybe electric fencing I am not sure but will have to investigate it when it starts again usually over the winter months. p!$$es me off because its otherwise nice and quiet out here :(
 

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