RFI:Take a 2 minute ride through the interference... RESOLVED

[Opcom]

I hope you find out what is wrong and let us know. I have a similar problem and am dreading the day my dipole is finally up because i'll bet it will be the same only stronger, and I'll have to chase it down. In my own front yard the local 5KW 910 AM is interfered with. While not as bad as knocking out your BC station it is very annoying. Please keep us informed on your findings!

[KX5JT]

The only radio station with good musical programming (for my tastes) in my area is KSIG, 1450 AM.  "Cool 1450".  They run 1KW omnidirectional day and night.  They play rock-n-roll hits from the 50s through the 70s.  They have an FM sister station that was playing the same format but they recently changed to country, go figure.  Anyway, I listen to 1450 either through my 1958 GE tabletop or when I'm mowing 2 acres on my Peltor Worktunes.  When I have full quieting, the fidelity is amazing for AM.   

This isn't really an interference comment, thank god, but just noting that I am part of that dying breed that DOES listen to an AM BC MUSIC station!  

P.S. Our Talk Radio station that I listen to in the car is actually KPEL, 105.9 FM and I catch them online when in my radio room or at work... usually for Coast to Coast AM. (on FM heh!)

[WQ9E]

John,

You are just listening radio about 35 years too late    Growing up in Gulfport MS in the 70's you had your choice of  excellent New Orleans stations including WTIX AM which played a variety of top 40 plus some older rock or the two great FM stations WRNO (the Rock of New Orleans) and WNOE which were both album rock/deep cut stations.  WNOE is now country according to the web and WRNO is now "Rush Radio" which is an extremely sad ending for a once great station.    Talk is bad enough for low fidelity AM but turning RNO into Rush Radio is akin to putting "professional wrasslin" on HD television.

Currently in central IL for AM you have your choice of 1 country, 1 evangelical religious, multiple foaming at the mouth talking idiots or news and sports talk out of Chicago.  For a real choice you have to use your own AM rebroadcaster.

[k4kyv]

Lack of programming has a lot to do with the demise of AM radio listening in many localities.  But commercial FM is not much better.  Instead of foaming-at-the-mouth talking idiots, you have a playlist limited to 30 or 40 songs of whatever genre of music the station plays.  You hear a few cuts of the same old same old, then a string of commercials and station promos that lasts 5 minutes or longer.

About the only broadcast radio I listen to is public radio. Instead of spouting out never-ending sewerage of misinformation and  propaganda, with a lunatic fringe political slant on every topic imaginable, they actually broadcast calm and thoughtful discussion of news and world events, in depth, sometimes from a political perspective and sometimes not. They are about the only broadcasters in this area that play classical music and jazz, and whatever type of music they happen to be playing, they do not stick with a limited, worn-out, repetitive playlist of the same songs over and over again. Here, we can get three NPR FMs, one NPR AM and three non-affiliated university FMs.

Many of the commercial AMs and FMs operate with a skeleton crew at most, operating as little more than satellite repeater transmitters. And the broadcast industry wonders why terrestrial broadcast radio is increasingly "uncool" and listenership has fallen off in recent years.  This may explain the lack of public interest in "HD Radio"; the subcarriers play more of the same, and the public couldn't care less about the slight, if discernible, improvement on the main channel with "crystal clear HD" over regular FM stereo. As far "HD" AM is concerned, the programming they run could just as well be played on slopbucket.  I subscribe to a couple of broadcast technical/engineering rags to keep track of what is going on in the industry.  Interestingly, they have published statistics showing that the NPR audience consists almost entirely of the 50+ crowd, and a significant portion of under-30's report that they have never even tuned across the AM band.

There are a few exceptions on the commercial broadcast bands and a few AM and FM stations are worth listening to.  Unfortunately, they run at about the same percentage level to the total, as AM'ers on the amateur phone bands.

I used to regularly listen to short wave broadcast radio, but since the BBC, Radio Canada, Radio France, R. Australia and other major international broadcasters quit transmitting to N. America, I find little of interest there.  About the only SWBC band I ever monitor is the segment in and near 40m, since I already regularly tune 40m on my ham receiver.

These changes in listening preferences may end up  having a devastating effect on HF amateur radio.  As the public continues to lose interest particularly in the AM broadcast band, there will be fewer and fewer complaints about pollution of the radio spectrum.  We already lost a strong ally in the battle against hash and buzzies with the demise of over-the-air analogue TV, even though the advent of cable did help us tremendously in terms of TVI hassles. We can hardly afford to lose our remaining allies that might exist amongst the AM BCL's.

[K6JEK]

Some of my buddies have had very good luck with the power company (PG&E) representatives.  Smart people with good equipment showed up and figured things out.  I hope you are as lucky.

Jon

PS:  Just listening to the AM stations you were monitoring for the length of your test reminded me why I never push the AM button any more.  Heck.  These days I mostly listen to the college stations with their amateur DJ's playing what they want to play instead of hyperventilating into the mic trying to get me all hot and bothered about some trumped up outrage.

[k4kyv]

One of the rare exceptions is WSM, 650 kc/s, Nashville.  50,000 watts, what used to be a clear channel, to a beautiful Blaw-Knox diamond-shaped tower.  No IBOC digital hiss, no political hot air windbags. Country music format, which I can take in small doses, but not really my cup of tea. But I can remember as a kid, that station got me interested in classical music with their nightly Air Castle Concert, as I would listen on a 1930's floor model console.

[N0WVA]

One of the rare exceptions is WSM, 650 kc/s, Nashville.  50,000 watts, what used to be a clear channel, to a beautiful Blaw-Knox diamond-shaped tower.  No IBOC digital hiss, no political hot air windbags. Country music format, which I can take in small doses, but not really my cup of tea. But I can remember as a kid, that station got me interested in classical music with their nightly Air Castle Concert, as I would listen on a 1930's floor model console.

I used to listen to WSAI, but it disappeared about 8 years ago. Also used to be an oldies station out of Tulsa.  Theres another station on AM playing country, cant remember its name, somewhere down south.

Edit: Im listening to KWKH right now on a regen 12SQ7 feeding a 50L6 driving a speaker. Thats the one playing country besides WSM.

[N0WVA]

John,

You are just listening radio about 35 years too late    Growing up in Gulfport MS in the 70's you had your choice of  excellent New Orleans stations including WTIX AM which played a variety of top 40 plus some older rock or the two great FM stations WRNO (the Rock of New Orleans) and WNOE which were both album rock/deep cut stations.  WNOE is now country according to the web and WRNO is now "Rush Radio" which is an extremely sad ending for a once great station.    Talk is bad enough for low fidelity AM but turning RNO into Rush Radio is akin to putting "professional wrasslin" on HD television.

Currently in central IL for AM you have your choice of 1 country, 1 evangelical religious, multiple foaming at the mouth talking idiots or news and sports talk out of Chicago.  For a real choice you have to use your own AM rebroadcaster.

Ahh, I used to listen to WRNO worldwide on shortwave back in the 80's.

[k4kyv]

Several years after the station came on the air, the WRNO owner died, and the station disappeared from the air.  I recall a few years ago it reappeared as a Bible Beater, but only briefly.

That is the station that got the FCC to start issuing commercial short wave licences once again.  They  had put a freeze on short wave grants, saying they wanted only government-run short wave stations, like the VOA, to be able to legally transmit from US soil, because the USIA (United States Information Agency) wanted a monopoly on US-based international broadcasting.  I remember when I was living in France, the USIA had offices in some of the major cities, sort of like a Chamber of Commerce bureau located in foreign countries.  They strongly discouraged US citizens and residents from even entering the building. I also recall VOA specifically excluded US based listeners and US citizens living abroad from participating in offers made over the air to their listeners.  Apparently, USIA not only wanted a monopoly; they didn't even want US citizens to know what kind of propaganda was being broadcast overseas by their government, even though most of it was pretty benign compared to that of Radio Moscow and other communist-bloc countries at the time.

The guy (I can't think of his name) who started WRNO did some research and discovered the FCC had no legal basis for denying SW applications, and with a team of expensive lawyers no doubt, forced them to issue him a licence.  Once that precedent was set, there have been many such licences issued since then, including WBCQ.

I recall back in the 50's there were several commercial short wave broadcasters.  One was on the west coast with the call letter KGEI.  Another was WRUL in Scituate Massachusetts and IIRC called itself World Wide Radio. Some of these stations also doubled as VOA  transmitters when not in use by their primary owners.  At the time, all VOA transmitters were privately owned and leased to VOA.  They ID'ed with normal sounding US call letters.  The ID was always recorded and had space shuttle audio.  When I first started listening, they simply gave the call letters, "This is Voice of America station WRUL, in Scituate Masachusetts."  Later they added the tag identifying the private owner of the facility, "This is Voice of America station WRUL, in Scituate Masachusetts, operated by the World Wide Broadcasting Company".  The one in Mason, OH north of Cincinnati transmitted under the call letters WLWO. The recorded ID indicated it was "operated by the Crosley Broadcasting Corporation".  I also used to hear KCBR in Delano, CA, and WBOU in Bound Brook, NJ.  These VOA transmitters also carried AFRS, Armed Forces Radio Service.  It was later re-named AFRTS, Armed Forces Radio and Television Service.  The GI's promptly nicknamed it A-farts.

Later, the VOA stopped using call letters altogether, and it became difficult to tell where the signal originated.  Now, I don't believe they even transmit from CONUS any more, although I think the government-owned transmitter in NC is still available for stand-by use.

[K5UJ]

When I drove across Iowa last August it was almost like going back in time (in a good way).   The AM BC band was crowded with small to medium stations and a few big ones like WHO and a couple of 5 KW jobs at the low end of the band.  The ground conductivity is so good in Iowa that even a flea power AM can get out really well.  I heard lots of music.   People out that way just don't seem to be crazy to follow every new hi-tech trend.  They don't have to run out and buy every new gadget the second it hits the market.  I heard that back during the 2008 election campaign, the two parties had all these beautiful information web sites set up and were spending all this money on the internet as a promotional medium for Iowa.   After a month or two they discovered hardly anyone there got their news and information from the internet; everyone mostly still read newspapers, watched TV and listened to the radio so all the money they spent was wasted.   I've also heard newspapers in towns out west in the Dakotas and Montana are still doing well. 

I've said before that as people age they grow into the formats on AM broadcast radio and with people living longer I would not write AM radio off too quickly.  In fact, if I had the money I'd buy a few carefully selected AMs if they were on the market at fire sale prices.  Oh well, I can barely afford K5UJ 

[W1AEX]

Just a postscript to this elusive RFI issue. As it turns out, this interference appears to have been caused by power company equipment rather than ATT U-Verse or consumer subscriber equipment.

Last Wednesday (June 30) at around noon, I heard a loud but distant "boom" and power went out in this area. About 1.5 hours later, the power company corrected the outage problem, and electrical service was restored. A short time later, as I drove up the road that is shown in my RFI video, all traces of the noise were gone, and it has not returned. This suggests that either a faulty power company device that was causing the noise failed, and was replaced, or an "Automatic Circuit Re-closer" unit was not fully snapped closed for all these months, and when the circuit was re-energized this time, it successfully closed all the way. I am hoping to get information about the work that was done to get some clarification on this issue. So... this story has a happy and quiet ending!

Rob W1AEX

[WA1GFZ]

Gee I wonder if it was the same day we lost power at work.

[ke7trp]

Another ham beat you to the faulty Transformer hanging on the pole.  High power  Rifle from car window takes those out 1 2 3... Then the Power company has to come out and replace them..  JK!!!   Glad that noise is gone!!!

C

Just a postscript to this elusive RFI issue. As it turns out, this interference appears to have been caused by power company equipment rather than ATT U-Verse or consumer subscriber equipment.

Last Wednesday (June 30) at around noon, I heard a loud but distant "boom" and power went out in this area. About 1.5 hours later, the power company corrected the outage problem, and electrical service was restored. A short time later, as I drove up the road that is shown in my RFI video, all traces of the noise were gone, and it has not returned. This suggests that either a faulty power company device that was causing the noise failed, and was replaced, or an "Automatic Circuit Re-closer" unit was not fully snapped closed for all these months, and when the circuit was re-energized this time, it successfully closed all the way. I am hoping to get information about the work that was done to get some clarification on this issue. So... this story has a happy and quiet ending!

Rob W1AEX

[The Slab Bacon]

John,

You are just listening radio about 35 years too late    Growing up in Gulfport MS in the 70's you had your choice of  excellent New Orleans stations including WTIX AM which played a variety of top 40 plus some older rock or the two great FM stations WRNO (the Rock of New Orleans) and WNOE which were both album rock/deep cut stations.  WNOE is now country according to the web and WRNO is now "Rush Radio" which is an extremely sad ending for a once great station.    Talk is bad enough for low fidelity AM but turning RNO into Rush Radio is akin to putting "professional wrasslin" on HD television.

Rodger,
           'RNO was BAD TO THE BONE! ! ! ! !  I used to listen to their shortwave feeds up here in Baltimore. I definately miss them. They definate played some killer good album music, and had a strapping signal to boot. There was another station out of Salt Lake City IIRC that had some good album music. I think their call was KUSW or something similar.

And best of all, I got suckered one night. I found a continuous run of Muddy Waters music, so I immediatly stopped there to listen. After about an hour of continuous music, I was dying to find out who they were. When the music stopped, I heard that familiar 50 cycle hum.................... It was Radio Moscow! Go figger.........................

                                                                     The Slab Bacon