RF buzzing my house wiring

[jessejamesdallas]

I've not had a chance to raise that ground plane up yet. Of note though I'm getting a small amount of noise from inside the walls when on SSB with less than 100 watts peak. That is with a clean IC-7100 and no amp! I'm highly suspect of the house wiring at this point. FIRE BAD!
Next step is to pull all the outlets and check the connections.

I'm also re-building my GAP Titan DX antenna which I'll be ground mounting away from the house. No clue if I'll get a usable match on 11m with that but at least I'll get the other bands which I don't have a resonant antenna for today.

I'm at a loss as to what to tell ya with your wiring...Never had that problem, and never herd of anyone having that problem...specially with no amp!

[295 antenna]

Question do you have aluminum wiring? If so check all your outlet with a heat sensor .Sounds like a loose outlet .the outlet will still work but it can get 15 to 20 degrees hotter than normal and is hard to tell just by feel

[Gus Chiggins]

295 antenna that is a GREAT idea. I have a laser thermometer I can use.
but no. All my wiring is copper. I suspect resistance at the daisy chain points at the outlets.
the heat sensor is a fantastic idea. That Plus the good ol screwdriver on the screws too.

[MDYoungblood]

I've not had a chance to raise that ground plane up yet. Of note though I'm getting a small amount of noise from inside the walls when on SSB with less than 100 watts peak. That is with a clean IC-7100 and no amp! I'm highly suspect of the house wiring at this point. FIRE BAD!
Next step is to pull all the outlets and check the connections.

I'm also re-building my GAP Titan DX antenna which I'll be ground mounting away from the house. No clue if I'll get a usable match on 11m with that but at least I'll get the other bands which I don't have a resonant antenna for today.

I'm like JJD on this one, never ran into this problem. Only hum or vibration I have ran into are from the small transformers but they do that all the time, radio doesn't effect it or likewise.
The Gap antenna I have ran across, it will tune 11m if you make the 10m section long but doing that you lose the 29mhz (have to use a tuner). Ground mounting is great, you can get to it anytime you want. Don't forget to do the ground radials, I was skeptical about it, I mean the ground is just that, the ground, until I installed several radials on my vertical (HyGain AV-6160) and boy what a difference.

3's

Greg

[295 antenna]

Thanks Gus ,i own my own Home inspection business and when i was certifying for my infrared camera I had found a "Hot" outlet in my house.So i know that they do go "bad" also

[Gus Chiggins]

Ok now I feel like an idiot. The noise was not coming out of the walls. It was the control unit (linear actuator) under our adjustable bed getting RFI. I unplugged it from the wall outlet and it stopped. Plugged back in and it does it. Every time.

The reason it seemed like it was coming from the walls was this vibration (low frequency) was transferring through the bed frame into the floor joists. Just the right frequency to make the drywall into a passive harmonic radiator. Depending on where you stand in the room it would sound like it came from different places on/in the walls. I know. Sounds ridiculous. It is ridiculous.

I could not believe it so I tried unplugging the connector right at the actuator and sure enough. No RFI noise. You can barely feel the vibration if you have your hand on the actuator. I'm guessing 5-8 hz. Really low and not very intense. You can feel it but you can't hear it.

What a royal pain in the **Censored** this has been. So much time wasted.

BTW all the outlets are the same temp. At least I don't have to worry about my house burning down any more.

Gus

[MDYoungblood]

LOL, well I am glad you found what it was. I would try a couple of the snap bead ferrites on the cord to see if that rids the RF pickup.

My next question was going to be is there a wall sconce or 2 on the wall you are hearing it, low voltage lighting uses transformers.

3's

Greg

[Scipio Kid]

Well sure, those adjustable bed, linear actuators cause so many problems, both in sympathetic resonance and in societal woes generally. That's why they're outlawed in both California and Madagascar. If memory serves, historians have accredited early European linear actuators as a major contributing factor to the onset of German aggression and escalation into the first World War.

I think you dodged a bullet.

Seriously, for you and everyone here ... as long as you're looking into your house wiring and knowing it was built in the 70's, and that it's been modified a time or two, a good inspection can be that ounce of prevention that eliminates tons of misery and woe. Heck, JJD almost burned his house down watching the Super Bowl!

I'm an electrician (now and then) and never considered potential problems in our second home until my wife told me the vacuum smelled funny when she cleaned the family room. Wives sometimes say the strangest things. I checked the vacuum, replaced the belt just for kicks and told her not to worry (while thinking she was imagining the whole thing). The next day, she called and said the vacuum smelled funny in the family room again, so I told her not to vacuum it so much. A couple days later, she came down to the garage where I was working (well, sleeping) under my truck and said it smelled a lot worse so I reluctantly went to investigate and found the family room full of smoke, coming from the wall socket. I ripped the vacuum cord out and the socket and part of the wall broke away to reveal we had a fire going inside the wall! Luckily, we dowsed it before we lost everything.

Only then, did I thoroughly inspect the whole house finding they'd used both copper and aluminum (which was still legal when the house was built) all through the house. Even though they hadn't wired the copper and aluminum together, I found every outlet on the main level had been running hot where the aluminum wires attached to the outlets. In the back bedroom I found another outlet that had gotten so hot it'd burned into the stud (another fire we'd apparently avoided somehow).

I told my wife it was her fault (just to keep her from cleaning so much) and then told the owner (we were renting) the place was untenable. We fought over it some and he got someone to replace plugs etc., but we moved out as soon as we could.

My son bought a beautiful, newly renovated home and moved his little family in. It was gorgeous inside and out but when we knocked out a wall to build a Solon for his wife, we started finding all kinds of bad stuff. The original house had been built 100 years earlier, with at least 5 renovations and additions since. We had asbestos in some walls, aluminum and copper wiring, plastic, rubber and asbestos insulation on the wires, bare wires in some places, galvanized, copper, plastic and even lead pipes and part of the foundation was made of old railroad ties! Man, a good inspection sure would have been in order before he plunked his life savings down on that one. Insurance wouldn't help, the seller, who was a house flipper was gone and the inspector who'd certified the place was gone with him. We spent 15 grand fixing what we could and hoping the place wouldn't collapse or poison his family and then came the miracle. The one good thing about the place was the huge yard and after a year of fixing things there came a knock on the door. A developer wanted the land and offered the appraised price from when my son bought the place. We found out the developer couldn't move forward without that property, so we counter offered at twice the original price. After a month of negotiating, the developer agreed to build my son a beautiful new home on a gorgeous lot up in the foothills and give him an additional 140 grand. We all cheered when the track-hoes came in and tore that monstrosity to the ground. They had to have a hazmat team come in and do the cleanup it was so bad.

Anyway, we got the miracle on that one but older homes can be hiding some real bad stuff. Better to be informed from the get-go than to be victimized down the road.

So, I admonish everyone here to give 295 Antenna a call and get him to do a thorough inspection of your place. You'll have the peace of mind you always wanted and, since he's a fellow member of the forum, I'm sure he'll give you a fair shake as well as some help in tweaking your radio set up! (I'm not sure where he's based so there might be a slight surcharge for travel if it's over a couple thousand miles but heck, it'll be worth it.) (Also, 295, how about a 10% commission on any business I've drummed up for you here?)

[Gus Chiggins]

historians have accredited early European linear actuators as a major contributing factor to the onset of German aggression and escalation into the first World War.

Ok now THAT is funny.

The part about the wiring I take seriously. WOW on your experience. While I'm on Christmas Vacation I'm going to check all the rest of my outlets.
Cheap insurance.

Thanks!
Gus

[jessejamesdallas]

historians have accredited early European linear actuators as a major contributing factor to the onset of German aggression and escalation into the first World War.

Ok now THAT is funny.

The part about the wiring I take seriously. WOW on your experience. While I'm on Christmas Vacation I'm going to check all the rest of my outlets.
Cheap insurance.

Thanks!
Gus

Awwww...no need to check the the outlets while on your Christmas vacation..."Trust Me" they will let you know when they need to be replaced! Besides...You have Home Insurance don't you? It's not doing ya any-good letting all that money you pay the Insurance company go to waist if ya don't use some of it every now and then!

Then again, when things let-go, seems like it's always at the wrong time...