As many of you may know, I have been suffering from S9+ power line noise for about 4 or 5 months. Loud enough to keep me off the air. But this past weekend, John W1AN showed up to help locate the noise problem. My initial suspect pole turned out to be totally wrong but John and his handy ultrasonic detector nailed the real culprits. I called in the three pole numbers to National Grid yesterday. It was an effort getting through their automatic menu system to finally get a customer service rep. But when I did, she took down the information, frequencies where the noise occurred, strength and the equipment used to locate the poles. She also took my address and phone number but did not give me any idea as to when they might get back to me. I also did not get a case number.
But thanks to John I am finally making progress on this issue!!
I hope National Grid takes timely action but who knows. Watch this space for future announcements.
73
Jim KS1J
Jim,
It took them a couple months to take action on a complaint that John filed for a pole near my house and the W1DX 147.06 MHz repeater site. They did make a correction. My problem is not yet completely gone, and I need to report some additional noise sources that John and I found using the same ultrasonic detector. At one point the engineer actually rang my doorbell and talked with my wife – I was not home – and she directed him to the general vicinity of the noisy pole.
The problem we are having here is intermittent, which make it a real challenge for everyone. Good luck. John has been successful in his neighborhood as well.
73, Mike, K1DM
Jim,
Sounds like you are on the right path, I need to do much of the same when I am home long enough.
73
Rick KI1G/4
Just to update. A National Grid representative showed up within three days. Although I did not talk with him, my daughter did. She said that he confirmed the issues at the three poles and that someone would be out within one or two weeks to correct the problems. I never got official notification but some time in the last week of August, the noise was no longer there!
73
Jim KS1J
That’s good news, Jim. Now you don’t have any excuse for not racking up the big scores 🙂
73, Ken K3IU
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Hi John and all
The noise has shown up again, like a bad penny. I have been in conversation with National Grid and they have been out here twice and twice they have claimed to have fixed the issue. But it is still there. I suspect that the noise might actually be coming from deeper in the neighborhood. My VX-1 with rubber ducky did pick up some serious noise but I can’t locate it specifically. I will be home for the week of October 19th. NG is supposed to come by then and help me locate it.
This is really frustrating.