re power signal surges in home in article randall woof randall informix com randall rhea writes gstovall crchh nosubdomain nodomain greg stovall writes anyway over the weekend i was resting on the sofa in between chores and noticed that i briefly picked up what sounded like ham radio traffic over my stereo and television even though both were off also all the touch sensitive lights in my house start going wacko cycling through their four brightness states i presume that some ham operator with an illegal amplifier drove past my house i live on a busy thoroughfare would this be a correct presumption what kind of power must he be putting out to cause the effects the affected equipment is about feet from the road hams are unlikely to have an illegal amp and are also unlikely to have a dirty amp hams can legally run up to watts it is very unlikely however that a ham would be running that kind of power from a car ham rigs not possible either you d need about a amp alternator for just the amplifier i can just see it you need to slow down on a downgrade so you hit the push to talk button for cars put out around watts it is possible that a watt radio would cause interference to consumer electronic feet away most tvs stereos and vcrs have very poor rf shielding if you experience the problem frequently it may be caused by a ham cber or other radio operator in a base station nearby the interference may have been caused by a radio transmitter used for other purposes such as police fire etc if you heard voices over your stereo i think you are correct in assuming that the source is an rf transmitter if you have frequent trouble you may want to try the rf ferrite chokes available at radio shack the interference is probably being picked up by your speaker wires and those chokes can be installed on the wires very easily without cutting them good instructions are included with the chokes if that does not solve the problem you may want to search your neighborhood for a radio operator look for antennas on the roof or car talk to him her about your problem there are things a radio operator can do to reduce interference and please remember to be friendly when approaching your local radio operator this person may or may not be the cause of your troubles and you ll get better cooperation and help if you assume that he is going to be helpful most are it was amazing the accusations that we sometimes dealt with as i grew up we were blamed for skip ghost pictures on the tv that occur at sunspot peaks c b interferance dead grass you name it btw the local operator should try and help you whether or not he or she is directly responsible it is part of being a good neighbor and that is how the fcc views it too bad they don t require the consumer equipment makers to take any precautions last you can usually tell ham radio vs cb ham operators are required to declare their call sign every so many minutes no more than so if you hear this is wa qt or some other call starting with a w or k and no more than total characters you heard a ham cb ers probably won t sign i don t know that they re even required to and fire police have other private ids douglas s rand drand osf org osf motif dev snail cambridge center cambridge ma disclaimer i don t know if osf agrees with me let s vote on it amateur radio kc kj
