HALP! Fiber optic QRN?

[k3wrv]

Got Verizon Fios (Fiber to the home) internet last summer, and have been plagued with hash, which seems to come directly from the FIOS equipment (Tried new equipment with no cat-5 connected to the boxes, at a different location in the house and the hash moved from one antenna to another).

Have put ferite beads about everywhere, with no luck. Noise is NOT coming thru the AC line - have tried using batteries.

Noise goes away when I unplug BOTH the router and the ONT (Optical modem) power supplies but not when I unplug just one.

Verizon tech support has no ideas about RFI.

Anybody got some magick bullets? (Short of buying a tower). All antennae are mounted on the roof and the propagation seems to be "Straight Up" from the equipment. Noise level goes from about nil to S-9 with the equipment disconnected / connected.

Yep, I've tried crude faraday cages made out of aluminium screen. (Assume the hash is not coming from the optical cable - this is on HF!) Can turn the equipment off when I'm on the air, but that causes YF problems.....

Tnx any assistance / new ideas!

De Bob

[n2ize]

Hmmm... Interesting. I too have FIOS service. Thus far the service has been great. #I also have a house full of computers and networking devices, and yet there is noise, but I have yet to do an analysis to determine how much of it comes from the various computers, hubs, routers, versus the fiber optic system itself. Now that you mention this I'll have to do some tests to try and determine what percentage of my noise floor is due to the FIOS system itself.

While all this computing stuff is great fun and quite useful it sure has taken it's toll on HF. #As more and more computing equipment has come into the house, and neighborhood in general, the noise floor on HF has slowly but surely gone up up up. I miss the simpler old days (of only 10-15 years ago) when computers were relatively rare in homes, networks in homes were unheard of, and getting on line meant dialin into a bulletin board. Okay, we didn;t have the ready info at our fingertips as we had today but DXing a very weak signal was possible given the relatively low noise floor that I had back then.

What to do now ??

1) Move my antenna far far away from all the computing stuff .. maybe if I had a farm with a shack away from any houses and computing equipment. But in a densly populated area with just a rear yard that is not an option.

2) Turn off all the computing equipment ? ... a possibility if I confine my radio ops to strange hours of the very late night and very early morning when i can get away with shutting it all down. And that still doesn't protect me from the junk in my neighbors homes very close by.

3) re orient the FIOS equipment ?... I can move the router but it already is about as far from my shack and antenna as I can possibly get it. Anywhere else would bring it closer. Other parts of the networking infrastructure are fixed to the building and very impractical to relocate and even if I could...to where ?

4) ferrite beads, shielding, filtering ? A good possibility and likely effective to a degree. But to what degree ?

All in all there is no easy solution or magic bullet. Having my antenna 60 - 70 feet up a tree at the apex does help somewhat. But there is stiull garbage that gets picked up via the feed line, etc. #I can work HF but not the way I could years ago before all this computing stuff became a part of everyday life. It has indeed come but at a price... the price of dramatically increased QRN on HF.

I still need to experiment to see how much, if any, of my noise floor comes from the FIOS system itself. To do that I need a day, or night, where I can shut everything down except for the FIOS network and see where that leaves me. Then shut that down and see if there is any difference. That will at least tell me what, if any, influence the FIOS stuff may have on my HF ops.

I'll try and keep y'all posted.

[n2ize]

Quote[/b] (k3wrv @ May 04 2007,10:53)]Got Verizon Fios (Fiber to the home) internet last summer, and have been plagued with hash, which seems to come directly from the FIOS equipment (Tried new equipment with no cat-5 connected to the boxes, #at a different location in the house and the hash moved from one antenna to another).

Have put ferite beads about everywhere, with no luck. #Noise is NOT coming thru the AC line - have tried using batteries.

Noise goes away when I unplug BOTH the router and the ONT (Optical modem) power supplies but not when I unplug just one.

Verizon tech support has no ideas about RFI.

Anybody got some magick bullets? #(Short of buying a tower). #All antennae are mounted on the roof and the propagation seems to be "Straight Up" from the equipment. #Noise level goes from about nil to S-9 with the equipment disconnected / connected.

Yep, I've tried crude faraday cages made out of aluminium screen. #(Assume the hash is not coming from the optical cable - this is on HF!) #Can turn the equipment off when I'm on the air, but that causes YF problems.....

Tnx any assistance / new ideas!

# # De Bob
Oh one other question. What type of ONT and router do you have ? Is it the older DLink router that VZ used to install or is it that new TV ready Actiontec router that they have been using lately ?

Also you say you need to shut them both down ? if you say shut down the ONT and then turn on the router while leaving the ONT off the noise comes back ? Is the noise exactly the same when either the ONT or router is on by itself ?

[AC0H]

The problem is usually the Fiber to Ethernet transceiver which is built in the Fiber modem. Some consumer grade routers are noisy as hell also.
Try putting ferrite's on both ends of the ONT to Router cable and both ends of all connecting CAT5 drops you've got. Don't forget the power supplies for both. Those wall warts are also notorious for RFI.

[k3wrv]

I Have the Actiontec router, and supposedly, the ONT was made by Motorola. Have also put ferrite beads everywhere I can think of but they really didn't help. Also, have unplugged all the cat 5 cables, which didn't help either.

For N2IZE - moving the antennas away from the house *does* seem to help, but it's kind of a pain! The noise decreases a bit (half an S-unit?) when I turn either the ONT or the router off. Turning all the computers off makes no difference.

Live in a rural area, so it's pretty quiet rf wise.

Bob http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/sad.gif

[AC0H]

Sounds like you need to get Verizon out there and have them check the demark, the box they hung on the house, to swap out the fiber to Ethernet transceiver and see if that makes a difference.

My uncle has the Verizon fiber service in Vienna, VA but hasn't reported any RFI from the system.

[k3wrv]

Well, the QRN seems to have drasticly quieted down with no action on my part (tho it's still a pain in the rear). Thjis may have been a result of a firmware upgrade to the Rooter. But it went from "real bad" to just obnoxious.

Bob

[k3wrv]

I realize this is an old thread, but I MAY have found an answer. (Not sure yet! so don't jinx me! but...)

I'm using the ubiquitrous "power strips". (this one was a cheapie from Ace Hardware). I'd gone through the usual drill, but ws getting a lot of wide band interference from DC to Daylight. I Hope, and I think that the problem was a dirty switch on the power strip. I'd never thought to trouble shoot to that level. Silly me!

I guess, when it comes to noise, SUSPECT EVERYTHING!

By the way, Power strips are for the most part pretty poorly put together - spade lugs and crimp joints. Take them apart and solder EVERYTHING, an replace the on/off switches.

de Bob

[W4INF]

QRN? Fiber Optics? I need to go back to my Q-Code list and see how those two go together. I mean, I can understand QRM... but QRN? :rolleyes:

Andrew

[kf6nfw]

QRN? Fiber Optics? I need to go back to my Q-Code list and see how those two go together. I mean, I can understand QRM... but QRN? :rolleyes:

Andrew
last time I checked the equipment would cause QRM, and not QRN, if you are getting QRN the you are getting something that no man can fix besides try different tranceivers and antenna , but other then that, its all noise.

As for the topic. I have only seen one dirty FIOS box, the result of a bad opto coupler, that the Isolation transformer didnt do its job, and produced noise in the HF bands. Had Verizon come out and check it and they told me it wasnt that, until I pulled them inside and demonstrated what happens when I kill the power for FIOS, the noise went away, even on the transistor radio sitting about a foot away from the unit.
about ten minutes later the problem was fixed as they just replaced the FIOS box.

[k3wrv]

As for the topic. I have only seen one dirty FIOS box, the result of a bad opto coupler, that the Isolation transformer didnt do its job, and produced noise in the HF bands. Had Verizon come out and check it and they told me it wasnt that, until I pulled them inside and demonstrated what happens when I kill the power for FIOS, the noise went away, even on the transistor radio sitting about a foot away from the unit.
about ten minutes later the problem was fixed as they just replaced the FIOS box.

NFW-

What are you calling the "Opto Coupler" - the box inside the house or the one outside? VZ replaced all the stuff inside the house, but that didn't make any difference. I'm not sure what the box outside the house does.

And I'll agree that QRM would probably have been a better choice - what I meant was "hash". When the Q Sigs were developed, I don't think anybody envisioned computers and all the electronic stuff we now put in our homes.

Bob

[kf6nfw]

NFW-

What are you calling the "Opto Coupler" - the box inside the house or the one outside? VZ replaced all the stuff inside the house, but that didn't make any difference. I'm not sure what the box outside the house does.

And I'll agree that QRM would probably have been a better choice - what I meant was "hash". When the Q Sigs were developed, I don't think anybody envisioned computers and all the electronic stuff we now put in our homes.

Bob The box outside mounted to th wall is what I ment. inside is a truely simple circuit.
To break it down to easy terms, the fiber optic transmits and receives with light, at each endof the glass wire(fiber optic) is a light sensor lets say an IR sensor and emiter for ####s and giggles, now from that box outside your house to the inside is copper, however light waves dont travel by copper, so they have to be switched to an electronic signal, that iswere there is the IR sensor connected to a small transformer, much like that of a audio transformer of say 1:1. One side is fed light, and out comes electrical current,and voltage making up the connection to the copper. which is were your cat5e comesinto play as this is the link to your network inside the house, and off to the router and so forth.
I know I didnt explain in tech terms, but very generic terms may be easier to understand, not as insult but to convey the message. Hope that helps!

and if I am mistaken then someone correct me.
I use similar circuitry when transmitting over laser.

[n2ize]

Not long ago Verizon sent me a new wall hog for their Actiontec router. There was nothing wrong with the old wall hog and I never requested a new one. Nonetheless, I received a package from them with a new wall hog and instructions telling me to remove and discard the old one. No explaination of what is wrong with the old wall hogs or why then needed replacement.