AmateurRadio.com

As I mentioned in my previous post, I’d been having a problem with powerline noise recently. The noise started to improve after about 2 weeks, with it disappearing for periods but then returning, until gradually it stopped entirely around a week ago.

As I mentioned, I had reported the issue after about a week to the local power company and while it took a while (just under two weeks), I got a message yesterday from a technician who had been dispatched to check out the problem. He said that he was at my house at the time (I was at work) and wasn’t hearing any unusual noise but asked me to call him to discuss the problem. When I first listened to his message it sounded like he had just listened with his ears (not with any kind of equipment) and my first thought was that I’d have to go through and re-explain the situation to him. I didn’t have a chance to call him back until today, but when I spoke to him I discovered that he did understand the issue and worked in the department that deals with, among other things, RFI and TVI problems.

He asked me whether I’d had issues like this in the past (I haven’t) and I talked about how the noise seemed to start right after the power was restored to some nearby houses after the freak snowstorm in October. He said that what may have happened is that in situations like this, when they initially restore power they’ll do so in a temporary manner just to get people hooked up then come back later and and do a more permanent job. His thought was that the temporary fix was noisy, but as they went back to “clean up”, they may have found and corrected the issues. So while I don’t know exactly what caused the problem, the good news is that the problem is gone.

The other good news is that he gave me his contact information and told me that if the problem returns that I should call him directly, at which point he’d come right out (instead of me having to wait a couple of weeks) to investigate.

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