OT: RF interference from grow lights.

[ab2tc]

Hello all,

https://www.edn.com/how-cops-are-finding-grow-ops-with-am-radios/

The above is a link to an article in the EDN magazine (a technical journal
primarily aimed at EEs). The article is more than five years old, but maybe
it is only recently this type of interference has started to show up in
upstate New York. I have one of these noise sources somewhere in my
neighborhood (it’s not that easy to pinpoint due to the low frequency). I
know this is OT and maybe somewhat controversial, but this type of strong
interference is of great concern to the amateur radio community. I am not
after anybody in my neighborhood getting arrested, but I very much want to
see the interference stop. Even if the operation is legal, the emission is
definitely way outside FCC part 15 limits. Quote from the article:

“..conducted emission data clearly shows peaks as high as 100+ dBuV (50 dB
over the limit) in the range 6 to 8 MHz, with lower peaks at 14, 18, and 21
MHz.”

My interference is primarily in the 7MHz band. 14 MHz is virtually free of
it. See here for a screenshot:

http://www.ab2tc.com/growlights.png

There are three peaks, approximately 49 to 50kHz apart. The center one is
centered under the cross hair cursor. As you can see, the band is starting
to come to life at about 2:30 in the afternoon. The interference is on 24/7
as far as I can tell.

Does anybody have any experiences like this and/or any suggestions what to
do? If you want to keep this confidential, E-mail me privately. My E-mail
address is OK on qrz.com.

AB2TC – Knut

PS. I have previously reported power line noise to the electrical company
and have had positive responses (fixes) from them. I suspect that this kind
of interference is not easily detectable on their UHF based sniffers;
besides I am not sure if conducted interference from residences lies under
their jurisdiction (there are only residences here for many blocks).





--
Sent from: http://elecraft.365791.n2.nabble.com/
______________________________________________________________
Elecraft mailing list
Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft
Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
Post: mailto:[hidden email]

This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
Message delivered to [hidden email]

[Ralph S]

Hi
I had a similar situation here in Tucson AZ  My spectrum analyzer,a Tek 492 showed groups of carrier like indications 10-20 db above the noise floor.  First think I thought "Grow Lights"  I was told that the osculator in a grow light is about 2.3 Mhz.  The interference looked like it was every 2.3Mhz up the band.  Levels were all over the place.  Called the local Power Co and after lots of pleading they finally sent a tech to check it out.  He connected up to my dipole antenna and looked at the pattern and concluded it was a ground connection proble.  Got a crew out the next week and traced it to a pole out about 2000ft from me.  The problem was radiating
from the HV line for about 2 miles.  Fixed the ground and problem
solved.  I had traced to one of three poles using a portable radio tuned the my main problem freq of about 5.2 Mhz and was able to hear the problem.  The main problem was a loose ground clamp up on the pole.  The power company also used an acoustic parabolic mike which pin-pointed the exact connector.  New connector problem solved
Ralph, W7HSG/AFA9RT
 

> On 08/20/2020 7:07 PM ab2tc <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
>  
> Hello all,
>
> https://www.edn.com/how-cops-are-finding-grow-ops-with-am-radios/
>
> The above is a link to an article in the EDN magazine (a technical journal
> primarily aimed at EEs). The article is more than five years old, but maybe
> it is only recently this type of interference has started to show up in
> upstate New York. I have one of these noise sources somewhere in my
> neighborhood (it’s not that easy to pinpoint due to the low frequency). I
> know this is OT and maybe somewhat controversial, but this type of strong
> interference is of great concern to the amateur radio community. I am not
> after anybody in my neighborhood getting arrested, but I very much want to
> see the interference stop. Even if the operation is legal, the emission is
> definitely way outside FCC part 15 limits. Quote from the article:
>
> “..conducted emission data clearly shows peaks as high as 100+ dBuV (50 dB
> over the limit) in the range 6 to 8 MHz, with lower peaks at 14, 18, and 21
> MHz.”
>
> My interference is primarily in the 7MHz band. 14 MHz is virtually free of
> it. See here for a screenshot:
>
> http://www.ab2tc.com/growlights.png
>
> There are three peaks, approximately 49 to 50kHz apart. The center one is
> centered under the cross hair cursor. As you can see, the band is starting
> to come to life at about 2:30 in the afternoon. The interference is on 24/7
> as far as I can tell.
>
> Does anybody have any experiences like this and/or any suggestions what to
> do? If you want to keep this confidential, E-mail me privately. My E-mail
> address is OK on qrz.com.
>
> AB2TC – Knut
>
> PS. I have previously reported power line noise to the electrical company
> and have had positive responses (fixes) from them. I suspect that this kind
> of interference is not easily detectable on their UHF based sniffers;
> besides I am not sure if conducted interference from residences lies under
> their jurisdiction (there are only residences here for many blocks).
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> Sent from: http://elecraft.365791.n2.nabble.com/
> ______________________________________________________________
> Elecraft mailing list
> Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft
> Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
> Post: mailto:[hidden email]
>
> This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
> Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
> Message delivered to [hidden email]

______________________________________________________________
Elecraft mailing list
Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft
Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
Post: mailto:[hidden email]

This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
Message delivered to [hidden email]

[Elecraft mailing list]

 It could also be Metal Halide lights over someone's Saltwater Aquarium.
I run Metal Halide lights over my aquarium and mine are quiet.But I knew a guy who did not have his grounded and shieldedand they put out so much noise they wiped out his TV reception.
I gave him a bunch of snap on chokes and as I recallhe also grounded the reflectors and it quieted it down.





    On Thursday, August 20, 2020, 09:09:03 PM EDT, ab2tc <[hidden email]> wrote:  
 
 Hello all,

https://www.edn.com/how-cops-are-finding-grow-ops-with-am-radios/

The above is a link to an article in the EDN magazine (a technical journal
primarily aimed at EEs). The article is more than five years old, but maybe
it is only recently this type of interference has started to show up in
upstate New York. I have one of these noise sources somewhere in my
neighborhood (it’s not that easy to pinpoint due to the low frequency). I
know this is OT and maybe somewhat controversial, but this type of strong
interference is of great concern to the amateur radio community. I am not
after anybody in my neighborhood getting arrested, but I very much want to
see the interference stop. Even if the operation is legal, the emission is
definitely way outside FCC part 15 limits. Quote from the article:

“..conducted emission data clearly shows peaks as high as 100+ dBuV (50 dB
over the limit) in the range 6 to 8 MHz, with lower peaks at 14, 18, and 21
MHz.”

My interference is primarily in the 7MHz band. 14 MHz is virtually free of
it. See here for a screenshot:

http://www.ab2tc.com/growlights.png

There are three peaks, approximately 49 to 50kHz apart. The center one is
centered under the cross hair cursor. As you can see, the band is starting
to come to life at about 2:30 in the afternoon. The interference is on 24/7
as far as I can tell.

Does anybody have any experiences like this and/or any suggestions what to
do? If you want to keep this confidential, E-mail me privately. My E-mail
address is OK on qrz.com.

AB2TC – Knut

PS. I have previously reported power line noise to the electrical company
and have had positive responses (fixes) from them. I suspect that this kind
of interference is not easily detectable on their UHF based sniffers;
besides I am not sure if conducted interference from residences lies under
their jurisdiction (there are only residences here for many blocks).





--
Sent from: http://elecraft.365791.n2.nabble.com/
______________________________________________________________
Elecraft mailing list
Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft
Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
Post: mailto:[hidden email]

This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
Message delivered to [hidden email]  
______________________________________________________________
Elecraft mailing list
Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft
Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
Post: mailto:[hidden email]

This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
Message delivered to [hidden email]

[ab2tc]

Hi Ralph and all,

Thanks for your response and I did receive several private E-mails as well.
It sounds like a phone call to the power company should be my next move. If
I just could find a way to get to a live person without going through a
million automated responses and interminable waits!

Loose connectors and clamps can apparently cause many different types of
interference so can not be ruled out in my case either. I have had several
cases like that over the years and they sounded and look quite different
from my current interference. But it sounds like nothing should be ruled
out.

Thanks again, all.

AB2TC - Knut


RALPH TURK wrote

> Hi
> I had a similar situation here in Tucson AZ  My spectrum analyzer,a Tek
> 492 showed groups of carrier like indications 10-20 db above the noise
> floor.  First think I thought "Grow Lights"  I was told that the osculator
> in a grow light is about 2.3 Mhz.  The interference looked like it was
> every 2.3Mhz up the band.  Levels were all over the place.  Called the
> local Power Co and after lots of pleading they finally sent a tech to
> check it out.  He connected up to my dipole antenna and looked at the
> pattern and concluded it was a ground connection proble.  Got a crew out
> the next week and traced it to a pole out about 2000ft from me.  The
> problem was radiating
> from the HV line for about 2 miles.  Fixed the ground and problem
> solved.  I had traced to one of three poles using a portable radio tuned
> the my main problem freq of about 5.2 Mhz and was able to hear the
> problem.  The main problem was a loose ground clamp up on the pole.  The
> power company also used an acoustic parabolic mike which pin-pointed the
> exact connector.  New connector problem solved
> Ralph, W7HSG/AFA9RT
>  
>> On 08/20/2020 7:07 PM ab2tc &lt;

> ab2tc@

> &gt; wrote:
>>
> <snip>





--
Sent from: http://elecraft.365791.n2.nabble.com/
______________________________________________________________
Elecraft mailing list
Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft
Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
Post: mailto:[hidden email]

This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
Message delivered to [hidden email]

[Phil Kane-2]

On 8/21/2020 10:36 AM, ab2tc wrote:

> Thanks for your response and I did receive several private E-mails as well.
> It sounds like a phone call to the power company should be my next move. If
> I just could find a way to get to a live person without going through a
> million automated responses and interminable waits!

In another life when I was with the San Francisco office of the FCC, I
used to refer IX calls to Pacific Gas & Electric in California and my
contact there was Jim Gillespie in General Construction.  Jim was a
great help, and I used to kid him that if this was too much work for him
he could always go back to washing insulators!  His counterpart at
Southern California Edison was also well-known as an IX-finder.  We're
all retired from IX-chasing now and I wouldn't have any idea who to
refer such calls to today.

As Ken Brown (W2KB) has pointed out over the years, it's to the
advantage of the utility to find and fix such leaks (if that is the
problem) because it loses money to have energy delivered to a non-paying
load.

73 de K2ASP - Phil Kane
Elecraft K2/100   s/n 5402

From a Clearing in the Silicon Forest
Beaverton (Washington County) Oregon
______________________________________________________________
Elecraft mailing list
Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft
Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
Post: mailto:[hidden email]

This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
Message delivered to [hidden email]

[JP Douglas]

A friend of mine had same issues a couple of years ago here in Maine, turned out it was marijuana growers using non approved chinese grow lights brought in illegally through Canada and being sold in Portland, ME.
We put an end to that, the FCC deputised my friend...even got in the Portland newspaper.
73 de Jose Douglas KB1TCD

Sent from my iPad

> On Aug 21, 2020, at 2:31 PM, Phil Kane <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
> On 8/21/2020 10:36 AM, ab2tc wrote:
>
>> Thanks for your response and I did receive several private E-mails as well.
>> It sounds like a phone call to the power company should be my next move. If
>> I just could find a way to get to a live person without going through a
>> million automated responses and interminable waits!
>
> In another life when I was with the San Francisco office of the FCC, I
> used to refer IX calls to Pacific Gas & Electric in California and my
> contact there was Jim Gillespie in General Construction.  Jim was a
> great help, and I used to kid him that if this was too much work for him
> he could always go back to washing insulators!  His counterpart at
> Southern California Edison was also well-known as an IX-finder.  We're
> all retired from IX-chasing now and I wouldn't have any idea who to
> refer such calls to today.
>
> As Ken Brown (W2KB) has pointed out over the years, it's to the
> advantage of the utility to find and fix such leaks (if that is the
> problem) because it loses money to have energy delivered to a non-paying
> load.
>
> 73 de K2ASP - Phil Kane
> Elecraft K2/100   s/n 5402
>
> From a Clearing in the Silicon Forest
> Beaverton (Washington County) Oregon
> ______________________________________________________________
> Elecraft mailing list
> Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft
> Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
> Post: mailto:[hidden email]
>
> This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
> Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
> Message delivered to [hidden email]

______________________________________________________________
Elecraft mailing list
Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft
Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
Post: mailto:[hidden email]

This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
Message delivered to [hidden email]

[Mark Musick]

Hi Phil,
Having worked for Duke Energy/Cinergy/PSI Energy for 35 years in operations, system planning, substation design and the rate department doing rate design I can tell you there is no revenue lose due to energy losses. It is all rolled into the rates. So, all customers pay for system losses.
However, you are correct that it is to the utilities advantage to find and correct these situations. Here in Indiana, the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission (IURC) looks at the system losses in rate cases and reviews steps taken to mitigate system losses.
System losses is one of many things included in the cost of service study presented to the commission when requesting a rate increase. The commission has questioned system losses in the past when they seemed out of line with previous lose figures given to them.

73,
Mark, WB9CIF

-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email] <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Phil Kane
Sent: Friday, August 21, 2020 18:31
To: ab2tc <[hidden email]>
Cc: Elecraft Reflector <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [Elecraft] OT: RF interference from grow lights (maybe).

On 8/21/2020 10:36 AM, ab2tc wrote:

> Thanks for your response and I did receive several private E-mails as well.
> It sounds like a phone call to the power company should be my next
> move. If I just could find a way to get to a live person without going
> through a million automated responses and interminable waits!

In another life when I was with the San Francisco office of the FCC, I used to refer IX calls to Pacific Gas & Electric in California and my contact there was Jim Gillespie in General Construction.  Jim was a great help, and I used to kid him that if this was too much work for him he could always go back to washing insulators!  His counterpart at Southern California Edison was also well-known as an IX-finder.  We're all retired from IX-chasing now and I wouldn't have any idea who to refer such calls to today.

As Ken Brown (W2KB) has pointed out over the years, it's to the advantage of the utility to find and fix such leaks (if that is the
problem) because it loses money to have energy delivered to a non-paying load.

73 de K2ASP - Phil Kane
Elecraft K2/100   s/n 5402

From a Clearing in the Silicon Forest
Beaverton (Washington County) Oregon
______________________________________________________________
Elecraft mailing list
Home: https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fmailman.qth.net%2Fmailman%2Flistinfo%2Felecraft&amp;data=02%7C01%7C%7C88b738f429bf4c0b955d08d8460093e6%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637336315572399413&amp;sdata=7HhH4U13IBcLU7sioPmjxRKRrRp7eUV2W%2F6RhbHxLC4%3D&amp;reserved=0
Help: https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fmailman.qth.net%2Fmmfaq.htm&amp;data=02%7C01%7C%7C88b738f429bf4c0b955d08d8460093e6%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637336315572399413&amp;sdata=5mbIy6%2FFgUiDx277opyhvhTsZwgavXEWOV%2FvwSxiDBU%3D&amp;reserved=0
Post: mailto:[hidden email]

This list hosted by: https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.qsl.net%2F&amp;data=02%7C01%7C%7C88b738f429bf4c0b955d08d8460093e6%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637336315572409408&amp;sdata=wObgxwvH90BGeXKRUEPQr1UoHE6ofYhSfsimBQzkxJo%3D&amp;reserved=0
Please help support this email list: https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.qsl.net%2Fdonate.html&amp;data=02%7C01%7C%7C88b738f429bf4c0b955d08d8460093e6%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637336315572409408&amp;sdata=HLWx4rk1U4YsvVZz4pBbl%2BcweoXGeW%2B%2BlBmmy9l%2FPlo%3D&amp;reserved=0
Message delivered to [hidden email]
______________________________________________________________
Elecraft mailing list
Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft
Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
Post: mailto:[hidden email]

This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
Message delivered to [hidden email]

[Jim Brown-10]

On 8/20/2020 6:07 PM, ab2tc wrote:
> Does anybody have any experiences like this and/or any suggestions what to
> do?

This, and a lot of other noise sources, are addressed extensively in
these two pdfs.
http://k9yc.com/KillingReceiveNoise.pdf
http://k9yc.com/KillingRXNoiseVisalia.pdf

73, Jim K9YC
______________________________________________________________
Elecraft mailing list
Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft
Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
Post: mailto:[hidden email]

This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
Message delivered to [hidden email]