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"No one cares about your stupid radio"

K

kenglish

Guest
At least, that's what they all tell me.
With a noise floor of S9+39 dB, I guess they are not lying.
They also laugh at the FCC.
 
There seems to be dozens of noise sources in my neighborhood, to the point that radio and TV reception is no longer enjoyable, and DX is impossible.
Trying to locate the sources is nearly impossible, since some seem to change constantly.
Many problems are due to faulty outdoor lights in the apartment complex...curly florescent bulbs that were installed in place of incandescent, and decades old High Pressure Sodium Vapor lights that (should) illuminate the parking areas (except they only illuminate for a few seconds at a time while cycling on and off).
Add that to the thousands of daytime lights (24/7) in the huge mall across the street, and there's noise constantly...even in to the VHF TV bands.
I've reported the apartment lights to my landlord numerous times, even giving them written lists of the problem ones. They always smile sweetly, and promise to take care of it, but never do. Other times, they say they are hoping to budget for new lighting "next year or so", but nothing ever happens except cosmetic changes to the grounds ("curb appeal").
Managers change every year or so,
so promises mean nothing.
 
I wrote another few paragraphs, but the log in timed out and it was lost.
I could write a book on all the efforts I've wasted on this mess, the fires that have occurred due to faulty wiring and ignored warnings, threats by property owners and HOA Nazis, etc.
 
Good topic, Ken. I've got four really swell radios for AM DX here, in a small town of 5000, and during the day DX is impossible because of the noise. Even as little as maybe five years ago the DX was wonderful.
In my former apartment (about 5 miles from here) there was this terrible racket, day and night, from some source. A PP&L guy, truck and all, came by at my complaint and request. The source turned out to be an electric blanket in another apartment with the adjustable temperature switch decaying.

* * * * * * *

If I may take a snide swipe at the actual thread title ?

In my opinion, there are only 15 people who give a flying one about HD radio. And they all post on the same forum.

(Not this forum :)
 
I humbly suggest that over the years, some of them have posted in this forum and belittled us DXers in the process! Not that those of us who DX aren't used to some ridicule.
The noise level is really disappointing nowadays. Signals I used to take for granted here in Columbus are anything but as a result. WLW and WJR immediately jump to mind. Might be just nostalgia but at the very least, those two stations were always very easy catches on home radios. Now, I have maybe one radio in this house that brings in WLW with very little static. WJR has been weaker around here for years, and only part of that is because of man-made interference IMO.
Once you get out in the country, the interference drops considerably.
 
schmave said:
Once you get out in the country, the interference drops considerably.
Click to expand...

Exactly. I have ham radio friends who used to do DX weekends where the goal was to pick up as many other amateur radio signals as possible. They didn't do these things in a crowded neighborhood. They traveled out to a deserted mountain, where there was limited interference, and the signals were the best. They set up tents and made a weekend out of it.
 
kenglish said:
I wrote another few paragraphs, but the log in timed out and it was lost.
I could write a book on all the efforts I've wasted on this mess, the fires that have occurred due to faulty wiring and ignored warnings, threats by property owners and HOA Nazis, etc.
Click to expand...

My location is practically useless for OTA listening on MW or SW. The sad thing is now I use globaltuners.com and half the listening posts there have the same problem. Tried to get a sampling of ham radio activity last weekend from a radio in Knoxville and wound up listening to somebody else's RFI!
 
I have some friends who took over the lease on the old Corrine, Utah "Chirpsounder" site. It is often plagued by power-related noise (I hate to use the term "power line noise" too freely, since many problems are not generated by the lines and hardware, but coupled to them by the attached customer equipment.)
There is an irrigation pump system, big enough to have its own substation, adjacent to the property. Investigations continue on that one.
I used to work at WPTX (Lexington Park, MD) many years ago, before they added the 1690 x-band. I was pleasantly surprised to hear it once on the Netherlands University of Twente SDR, but they now have something wiping out that end of the band.
 
Just caught a couple of the maintenance guys working on a remodel across the hall...
They said they do regular inspections of the outside lights, and have not seen the five bad ones on my building. No one has ever forwarded any of my requests to them.

A couple of week ago, there was a big (International, I think) Dark Skies conference up at one of the resorts. They were touting the economic impact of having clear, dark skies...not only for astronomy, but just for the beauty, and lower harmful effects on living things.
They mentioned a University of Utah conference coming up soon. If the landlord is serious about changing out all the lighting, I wonder if they would work with us to come up with a modern system that saves electricity, shields the upward light spillage, AND minimizes RFI .
 
[sarcasm button on] At times like this I always think it would be cool to have an RFI generating contest. Fire up that spark transmitter, let 'er rip. [sarcasm button off]
 
My apartments have several "spark gap" transmitters...High Pressure Sodium Vapor Lights.
They buzz for about 30 seconds, then the thermal cutout on the ballast (an actual spark gap) opens, and the radios go to full AGC limiting. A couple of minutes later, it starts all over again/
 
TheBigA said:
Exactly. I have ham radio friends who used to do DX weekends where the goal was to pick up as many other amateur radio signals as possible. They didn't do these things in a crowded neighborhood. They traveled out to a deserted mountain, where there was limited interference, and the signals were the best. They set up tents and made a weekend out of it.
Click to expand...

That's what the amateur radio clubs do in my neck of the woods too. There are still some local 'moonrakers' whose giant beam antennas can be seen from almost anywhere but not near as many as years ago. Seems this is another dying activity.

It's the same argument going on in our navy where HF and CW used to be king of communication. Now it is all sat and TTY and/or internet for the civilians.
 
boombox4 said:
[sarcasm button on] At times like this I always think it would be cool to have an RFI generating contest. Fire up that spark transmitter, let 'er rip. [sarcasm button off]
Click to expand...

I know where there is a very good one although it might take a couple big muscle guys to move it. Visit the IJN Mikasa in Yokosuka, Japan. It has a WWI spark gen the size of a small refrigerator.
 
I live in a very remote area that's wilderness.

Most everyone is off grid, including us, and the interference on AM is worse than it was in my apartment in Tampa.

Maybe the solar power creates it's own interference but over the years, reception has gotten worse everywhere because more and more modern appliances probably cause more interference, not to mention those annoying CFL bulbs that have been forced on us.
 
landtuna said:
That's what the amateur radio clubs do in my neck of the woods too. There are still some local 'moonrakers' whose giant beam antennas can be seen from almost anywhere but not near as many as years ago. Seems this is another dying activity.
Click to expand...

A group of Medium Wave DXers made a week-long expedition to Prince Edward Island a month or so ago. They mostly used SDRs and managed to dig out things like local town small AMs from Iran.

On previous DXpeditions to Newfoundland, they fill pages of reports with deep South Africa, Namibia and the like as well as 100 watt graveyarders from Brazil.

They both got away from man-made noise and also from saturation level local AM signals.
 
Last edited:
hawaiigar said:
I live in a very remote area that's wilderness.

Most everyone is off grid, including us, and the interference on AM is worse than it was in my apartment in Tampa.

Maybe the solar power creates it's own interference but over the years, reception has gotten worse everywhere because more and more modern appliances probably cause more interference, not to mention those annoying CFL bulbs that have been forced on us.
Click to expand...

Nearly everything has some digital components - solar charge controllers do. The FCC has really given up enforcement as a wasted effort. It would be overwhelming to catch 1% of the offending equipment.

Some of this noise is not local by any stretch - it's hard to guess where it comes from. One afternoon I was listening to one of "cruising" nets in the Caribbean in the 8 Mhz HF marine band, and getting a rough whooshing / buzzing noise sliding randomly across part of the band repeatedly. I thought it was local noise (in Boston), but 1000 miles they were talking about the same noise and changed channels twice.
 
channel99 said:
One afternoon I was listening to one of "cruising" nets in the Caribbean in the 8 Mhz HF marine band, and getting a rough whooshing / buzzing noise sliding randomly across part of the band repeatedly.
Click to expand...

Back in my navy days when we heard a "whooshing" sound we put on our flotation devices. "Buzzing" sounds, not so much.
 
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