K4KYV from VE7KHz

[VE7 Kilohertz]

Hi Don,

That was me calling you just now. You were S-9 to 10 over for a while. Nice sounding station and good signal.

We'll chat someday when the condx are 2 way.

best 73

Paul

[k4kyv]

I could hear you in there but the signal was completely unreadable when you transmitted.

Problem is that @##$%^& intermittent sodium lamp street light.  It wipes out weak signal reception whenever it cycles on and re-ignites, and it cycles on and off every 1 1/2 minutes.  So I have about 30  seconds of noise  followed by about a minute of silence, from sundown to sunrise.  I didn't track it down until mid November when I bought a portable shortwave radio and started walking round the area.

I called the power company about 2 1/2 weeks ago and reported the problem.  I tracked down the interference to the exact lamp and told them exactly where it was.   You can see it visibly cycle on and off every 1 1/2 minutes. About a week later, no action, so I called them again.  They told me that it takes them 7-10 days to fix one of those lights, and they have to order parts.  Which is bullshit because there are literally thousands of those things in the area so you would think they would have plenty of parts on hand. 

On the 10th day after I initially called, still no action, so I called them again.  This time the story had  changed and they told me the light had been fixed, that I had called them on the 28th, and they came out and fixed it on the 30th.  Of course it is the daytime crew that works on the damn things, so they have no way of knowing if they have been fixed because the lights only come on when it gets dark.  So I told them it still  hadn't been fixed, so they said they would "put another work order in".  I asked how long it would take this time, and they said "well last time someone came out within 2 days".  To-day was the 2nd day after my most recent call and still no action.

Now I am getting irate.  I plan to call them to-morrow and threaten to either get the FCC involved or else I'm gonna take a rifle and shoot out the bulb.  The same power company made national headlines in several ham rags including Queer Street Times a couple of years ago over a line noise issue in a town near here that they hadn't resolved in months.

The street light is on unattended private property and the owner pays about a $7 monthly fee to keep it, so they are getting ripped off too, since they are not getting the service they pay for.  They have been notified, and they called in one time as well, but they don't seem to be overly concerned about it.

I stopped by and checked the light last night and the guy who lives next door says he  has  lived in the house for 2 years and that the light has been blinking on and off ever since he moved there.  The interference was pretty weak last year and the year before, but now it wipes out everything less than about S7-S8 when I use the beverage receiving antenna.

[WA3VJB]

Sometimes you can take and whack the pole real hard and the mechanical trauma will knock out the light for a few hours.  This may apply only to the bluish-white mercury vapor types, not the orangey sodium pressure lamps.

Keep that shootin' iron handy as a real solution.

[VE7 Kilohertz]

Hi Don,

Sorry to hear of your line noise from the lamp. I too had some problems a few years back at my old QTH in Coquitlam. Went around the neighbour hood like you did and found th exact pole causing me the grief...it was a guy wire that thye had installed...rubbing against the actual power line..!!!%$^&**   Wow!!! Must have been a Monday when that was installed. Anyway, they came out within a week and put an orange sleeve over the guy and that solved the problem.

Good luck with your light issue and as Paul says, keep that shootin stick nearby.

Chat soon I hope.

Paul

[Ed/KB1HYS]

Good luck Don.  Hopefully you will get that fixed or taken care of.

I have one of those LED Stoplights about 100 yards from my house.  It wipes OUT the AM BC Band when you are sitting at the light.  I can hear it up and down the band with the 390A and TS-520. Weaker sigs on 75 and 160 might are GONE.  I don't think there is anything I can do about it at all, except move... 

Ahh progress... aint it grand.

[WB2EMS]

Here's what you need. 

http://www.dillerdesign.com/quietgun/index.html

They use things like this to quietly take out deer in the suburbs around here and at the airport.

[Sam KS2AM]

Problem is that @##$%^& intermittent sodium lamp street light.  It wipes out weak signal reception whenever it cycles on and re-ignites, and it cycles on and off every 1 1/2 minutes.  So I have about 30  seconds of noise  followed by about a minute of silence, from sundown to sunrise.  I didn't track it down until mid November when I bought a portable I stopped by and checked the light last night and the guy who lives next door says he  has  lived in the house for 2 years and that the light has been blinking on and off ever since he moved there.  The interference was pretty weak last year and the year before, but now it wipes out everything less than about S7-S8 when I use the beverage receiving antenna.

Sorry about your street lamp noise Don.  I'm surrounded by these sodium lamps here.  I've reported at least 50 or so over the last few years including ones that are several blocks away since they are a problem as well when I'm trying to copy a weak signal.  The power company here is JCP&L (First Energy) and they are fairly helpful when reporting problems with these lights and have a web page to report them which saves me the trouble of calling people on the phone and haggling with them.  Normally they're out to fix them in a few days but they've showed up in as little as 8 hours and as long as several weeks when they were on strike.
I can tell you a couple of things I learned.  The normal procedure, at least for JCP&L, is for them to change the sodium bulb and the light sensor.  They don't change the ballast device.  In a very small number of instances the initial repair did not help and they told me that they would come out and change the "head" which is the entire fixture because that houses the ballast device which apparenlty is not a field replaceable unit. So its possible that they are not lying and just haven't spent enough time on it yet.
The other thing to note is for these streetlight issues you don't need to walk around with a portable shortwave set, vhf receiver with directional antenna, etc , etc.  All you need to do is drive around with the car radio set to a relatively quiet spot at the upper end of the AM dial.  These lights are very loud and between the noise and the visual off/flicker/on/off cycle you'll have no problem locating these lights quickly.
There a very good website here that contains many audio RFI samples including utility related noises and in some cases what caused the noise and what the fix was.

http://www.arrl.org/tis/info/HTML/rfi-noise/

Word of caution, its hosted by those really bad people at the ARRL.   

Sam / KS2AM

[Todd, KA1KAQ]

Same issues here over the last coupla years. Just reported another one last month, they couldn't figure out where it was despite my giving them the pole number and clear, descriptive directions. After the 3rd call, I offered to paint a big, fluorescent-orange X on the side, but they finally found it. It was right on the main street, next to a hospital, in a tiny town! How difficult is that to figure out?

Now there's another one at it, further off as it's not as loud. Cycles rapidly too, so it's either a new problem or an old one that was covered up by the previous offender. My power company has been really good about dealing with them, repairing one the very next day. It's just annoying to have to track them down. You'd think they'd have a maintenance program, maybe 10% over average hours, to replace them automatically. They waste a LOT of electricity with that crap.

[Sam KS2AM]

Just reported another one last month, they couldn't figure out where it was despite my giving them the pole number and clear, descriptive directions. After the 3rd call, I offered to paint a big, fluorescent-orange X on the side, but they finally found it.
You'd think they'd have a maintenance program, maybe 10% over average hours, to replace them automatically. They waste a LOT of electricity with that crap.

I've spoken with the local repair guys and they told me to wrap a strip of blue electrical tape around the pole when reporting the light which I now do and it makes the pole easier to find when they're driving around - its hard for them to read the pole number unless they stop at every pole.  These guys have dozens of lights on their daily repair worksheet so whatever you can do to help them, helps you.  Also, one of the guys showed me his worksheet and some of the information I provided about the lights never made it onto this document, so sometimes the repair guys are given bad information.
I also spoke with the local service manager and while these guys choose their words carefully he seemed pretty unhappy with the failure rate of these lights and how much time they have to spend on them.


Sam / KS2AM

[John K5PRO]

The idea of shooting out the bulb seems reasonable, in this case. If they cannot fix it, then you can, for good. Then the neighbor can ask for credit for the dead light that they have.

I love living out in the highplains/desert of NM, there aren't any lights within a long distance. Its BLACK at night. However, the 115 kV powerline that feeds the area comes within a mile, and it shows up as speckles on low channels on TV, like ch 4. Thats been happening for 15 years, so I doubt that they will fix it, might just be corona somewhere on that line. They use wooden poles, so when the poles burn up, they have to replace them, the local REA co-op. Thats their leakage detector, smoking poles.

good luck with it,
John
K5PRO

[WD8BIL]

Don, just pop the light sensor on top with a .22, stops the problem, it never tries to turn on again.

Mack

Surgical strike !!! I like ur thinking Mack.
Might be a bit more discrete than my WMD shotgun approach !

[k4kyv]

The only thing that worries me about using the .22 is the danger with shooting a rifle into the air where there are people and houses nearby, and you don't know where the bullet is going to fall.  Besides, I'm a lousy shot with a rifle, so the probability of accidental mayhem is increased with the multiple shots it would probably take.  Maybe a powerful air rifle would be better.

I called the power co. again today and decided to stick with the softer approach.  The lady was very nice, and took notes on what I told her.  She suggested that I mark the pole with a ribbon, so I bought a roll of yellow plastic tape like surveyors use, and wrapped enough of it on the pole that they can't miss it.  I also gave her my phone number and suggested that they call me when they come out and I can show them exactly where the light is.

They have always been cooperative about fixing noise problems, but I have always had to track them down myself and practically take them by the hand and lead them to the problem.

I wonder if those led traffic lights meet Part 15 standards.  Since they are becoming ubiquitous in almost every city and there are traffic lights everywhere, this could rival BPL.  Perhaps the AM broadcast industry would get involved, since this will hurt them severely because probably over 90% of their prime time listeners are commuters, and most listeners will switch over to FM if they start getting interference at every traffic light.  I  have been told that the noise pollution comes from a switching power supply used to operate the lights.  That could easily be fixed with a little filtering.  I'm not sure shielding would even be required.  The power lines feeding the units are acting like antennae.

[AF9J]

Good luck Don.  Hopefully you will get that fixed or taken care of.

I have one of those LED Stoplights about 100 yards from my house.  It wipes OUT the AM BC Band when you are sitting at the light.  I can hear it up and down the band with the 390A and TS-520. Weaker sigs on 75 and 160 might are GONE.  I don't think there is anything I can do about it at all, except move... 

Ahh progress... aint it grand.

You know,  I have FOUR sets of those things witihin 100 yards of where I live. They are for both lanes of the divided road I live next to, and are for the on ramps to the freeway. I wonder if those aren't part of my noise problem.

73,
Ellen - AF9J 

[W1IA]

Don, just pop the light sensor on top with a .22, stops the problem, it never tries to turn on again.

Mack

My best delinquent shot was 250 yards to an annoying street light...of course I was 14 at the time. 
Now I just a middle aged delinquent

[Ed/KB1HYS]

You know,  I have FOUR sets of those things witihin 100 yards of where I live. They are for both lanes of the divided road I live next to, and are for the on ramps to the freeway. I wonder if those aren't part of my noise problem.

73,
Ellen - AF9J 

Well,  If you use the Automobile AM reciever, you could drive around a bit and figure out which it is. (If not all four).  This thing is noisy, there is a substation only a little further down the road, and when I go past that, you'd hardly notice the buzz on the radio.  The shopping mall down the road is the other source of RFI, not as bad as the Stop light.  The Stop light is strong enough to drown out the two local stations.  No Idea who to even call to ask about fixing it.

[AF9J]

I know I definitely get noise from those honking 250 kV power lines next to where I live.  They buzz up a storm if I listen to AM, as I'm passing under them.  I'll have to listen for the LED traffic lights tomorrow, when I leave to run errands.

73,
Ellen - AF9J

[WA3VJB]

If I lived closer I'd come help.

One season cleared 200 squirrels on just over 2 boxes of Federal^® rounds ("value pack, 100 ea.")

Sometimes I'd miss, sometimes I would get two on a single shell.
Worked out.

[k4kyv]

I stopped by the site about noon to-day and wrapped the offending pole with several turns of yellow tape.  Then went into town for some errands.  On my way back, it was well past dark, so I stopped and observed the light.  I must have watched it for 5 minutes, and it never went off.  Later this evening I listened on the radio, and no noise.  Looks like they fixed it some time this afternoon.

(Keeping my fingers crossed)