[NostalgiaRadioTime]

Oh my bandswitch works OK, Will. Do you get anything on the police band? I just get some AM frequency bleeding through. I think that band is more or less obsolete today.

I do have Deoxit and can try some on the tone switch if I decide to pull the chassis again. I thought I did spray it when I had it out to recap it, though.

[skyscraper]

The stations between 1500 and 1600 that the regular range doesn't reach, come in well.

I just strung up my first long wire, about 100ft of the 30awg supported at several points by insulators. Not terribly impressed, almost every DX station fades in and out, even relatively close ones. It doesn't seem to pick up much more than the 20 ft on the ceiling did. Time to learn about antennas, I guess.

And that horrible intermittent interference is still there..

[NostalgiaRadioTime]

I made an antenna just out of a piece of insulated wire. It's only about 5 feet long, and I crimped a gator clip on each end. One gets clipped to the antenna lug of the radio, the other gets clipped to the metal grate over the air vent at ceiling level above where the radio sits! I'm able to get all the local stations that way, even WBBM and WGN in Chicago, 120 miles south.

As for intermittent interference, this is probably obvious, but if you have a computer on nearby you'll get interference on AM. Ditto for a TV. When I was working on the radio in the basement, if there was a TV or computer on upstairs, I would get interference. Actually any electronic device can cause that. Even "smart" phones.

[skyscraper]

As it gets later, the antenna is working much better. Guess I didn't give the ionosphere enough time. So far the 5kw WFIR from Roanoke is the most impressive.

In addition on the police band, I'm listening to hams chatting about pies, old girlfriends and how to pronounce 'Louisville' on 120 meters or so, that's lots of fun. There are also a couple of shortwave stations, I think religious, on the higher end, 2.1mhz+.

I've tried almost everything electrical I can find. It isn't any of the computers, cell phones, chargers or TVs. I've ruled them out. I know what cfl interference sounds like, that's not it either.
I replicated the sound exactly when I touched the antenna of a digital receiver and the ungrounded 89 chassis at the same time.. Is it possible something is wrong in the breaker box? It occasionally buzzes a bit, my dad seems to think it isn't a problem.
One last thing, while it ruins all the lower stations on all my radios, you can only hear it over a carrier. For example, you can hear it at 650kc, 740kc, 840, but not between. I'll try to post a video of it.

[TV MAN]

I get that interference also. I can turn off everything in the house, it comes and goes. Sometimes it is quiet as a church mouse. Mine sounds like a 60cycle buzz that is kind of staticy. It is kind of tunable also. Sometimes it is so bad, I cant even listen, esp in the upper freq's. I think it is coming in on the power lines. I also get a horrible buzzing that lasts for about 5 seconds about 2x day. It's bad enough I can even hear it in the transformers of our vapor lights outside, makes flourescent lights flicker and ruins recordings! Bout gave me a heart attack first time it did it on my radio! Power company is shooting some kind of signal I think. I used to get a whistle/buzz that was so bad I couldnt even listen to any AM. I gave up for a time. It was right after our power company installed some kind of fancy electronic meter. Things havent been good since.

[skyscraper]

Interesting. SCE&G has gone all digital meters too.

It happens once every minute or two, but only at night. One thing I've noticed is some high voltage transmission lines about a quarter of a mile from here are audibly arcing. Probably isn't it, but might be worth going over there with a radio.

I keep meaning to try a battery receiver, but the only ones I have require 12 volts worth of C or D batteries at $1 or more a piece..

This is really going to take the fun out of DXing at night. I enjoy listening to CFZM 740 and WSM 650, this wipes them out for half the time.


Greg, if you are only getting AM stations bleeding through on the police band, I'm not sure both contacts are fully closing. The only AM signal I get that doesn't belong is a faint harmonic of a 5kw station 1 mile away. They did bleed through before I cleaned it.

[BrendaAnnD]

That noise could very well be the power company 'polling' the meter. Also a possibility is BPL (Broadband Over Powerline), which can tear up pretty much everything in the MF and HF bands.

[gregb]

One place we lived in I had this static that drove me nuts. I turned things off, turned things on, unplugged things, tried everything and couldn't figure it out. Got a little transistor radio and used it as a signal tracker and wondered through house with it and tracked it to a small table lamp in my youngest girls room. A little touch lamp was creating so much static that in her room I could get zero reception on the transistor radio, and this is with the lamp off. When I touched it to turn it on the static got worse. The cure was unplugging that lamp, no more static.

Gregb

[PAradiogeek]

Skyscraper,

I hope the problem isn't your meter as I would expect that that would be hard to fix. We just had new meters installed about 2 weeks ago. I haven't noticed anything different radio-listening-wise since they were installed. Lucky I guess...

Jon