What rights do we have in terms of getting somethig fixed that isn't ours, like a noisy power transformer on the street, street lights, etc.? Can we make them fix it? Is there a compliance process? I'm hoping its not one of my neighbors. I might not ever figure out what it is.
That same Harbor Freight battery maintainer was producing 40m RFI at my station. I tracked it to the house of a neighbor (and friend), who was very helpful and gave it to me. It has a switching converter with no line filtering at all so the noise is conducted onto the power lines and then radiates everywhere. I bought a new one (they're cheap) - same problem. Documented my findings which I sent along with the unit to the ARRL lab which confirmed it didn't meet emission regulations. I also wrote a letter to the CEO of Harbor Freight - which was ignored as I expected. Why put an extra dime into a product if the government doesn't enforce the rules? It's a noisy world out there. Good luck.
2 meters in my house was unusable. Took a sleepless night to figure out the culprit: LED light bulbs. Which I had redone the whole house in.
This converter caused lots of noise issues in my shack. This is for a TV I have that the power brick failed on. I bought this replacement for the failed one. It generated S9 noise on the 20 meter band and, to a lesser extent across most bands.
I'm sure that supply was never approved for safety by any agency, let alone for EMC. The marks are fake, resembling the real thing but clearly not. The warning sentence in English is weirdly worded with a meaning sort of opposite of what the typical FCC Part 15 notice says. A quick search shows these are sold all over online for cheap. And that's exactly what they are. By the way, if one of these things electrocutes someone or burns your house down, it could be tough to get relief from the online seller, even if it's a big well-known name. Their Terms of Service almost always say everything sold is AS IS and they disclaim all responsibility. Caveat emptor in the 21st century. I would cut the cord off and throw it away.
Oncor Electric Delivery in Texas - maybe it is the winds here in North Central Texas that works pole hardware loose and also loosens up the primary wire such that an arc gap occurs and then I get stronger than S9+15 dB noise at the QTH on 160 meters ... one such source was five miles to my NE! Other such sources averaged 1 to 2 miles away. A log of events here: https://powerlinenoiseallentexas.wordpress.com/
Interesting.... you're just across 75 from me. I've heard other things about Oncor that aren't in their favor...
How about that ... you probably heard a couple of those arcing distribution line 'sources' on 80 (and 160 for sure) meters then! You are about 3 miles from the arc-er that was near McDermott and US-75 and 2.8 miles form the one that was across from the Allen City Service center (on Jupiter south of Bethany and north of Chapparal). The one across from the Allen city center was affecting the AM broadcast band at 1400 kHz pretty bad and a local ham friend let me know and it was the same one bothering me on 160 meters! Jim
I'm only on a tech license for now and not equipped to play on 80/160 so I haven't directly experienced it myself. Next time you go on a DF trip I'd be interested to tag along, though, for the learning experience!
