Sunday, 28 January 2007

I was reading an article about device that allows you to capture records off the radio without commercials or speech. http://www.popcatcher.com/
 Does anybody know anymore about this? Surely it must be on the verges on copyright infringement if you are not making any financial contribution. What happens with the dj/presenter talks over the intro?
—

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Martin Rosen

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I wasn't sure where to ask this question so i thought i would give Anorak Nation a go!!

For the last two or three days i have been suffering a very severe interferiance problem across all AM bands from Longwave up to 30 mcs everywhere in the house, It is a strong hash sounding noise and affects every receiver,

It is so bad except for very strong stations i cant listen to anything at all, Which makes having my latest communication receiver a waste of time,

With the help of my Son i have tried to track this down to no avail, We have turned off every electrical item in the house including the central heating boiler and even disconnected the power going to the Sky LNB,

Using a portable we have discovered that it radiates about 6 ft from the house front and back, At first i thought it may be something coming from my Neighbours as we have nothing new electrical but on holding the portable up to the adjoining wall the noise reduces slightly so i know it is not them but something here!!

The only thing i cant turn off is the power coming in though the NTL cable line which we only use for Broadband but i have turned off the modem at the mains still to no avail,

Could it be the NTL cable line?? Any suggestions welcome!!

Regards

Richard

Why don't you turn your power off at the mains
Richard? If it persisted then surely that would nail
the NTL line as the culprit?

Quoting a previous Richard Sharpe contribution:-

~

Could it be the NTL cable line?? Any suggestions welcome!!

Only a suggestion, Richard, but could it be that the power company has started that thing (can't remember what it's called) of sending data on top of the power lines? As in, is it possible it's now part of the electricity supply?

I'm not sure how you 'prove' this, but what happens if you turn all your power off at the point it enters your house?

Cheviot Slymey <...> said:
Why don't you turn your power off at the mains
Richard? If it persisted then surely that would nail
the NTL line as the culprit?

Thanks for the excellent suggestion, Doing that did cross my mind but as it meant going round and resetting the time on several bedside clock radios i put it off and tried the easy way,

I have just tried what you said and it worked all interferiance went away, So now i know it is a mains problem but what can i do about it?

Regards

Richard

Hi i have just sent a e-mail about this to the power company (N Power) complaining about this,

Anyone know it they help and take any action?

Richard

How thorough were you in switching off all your
appliances? Did you do them one at a time (not a task
I'd relish I have to say) or all in one go?
When I lived in Doncaster we used to get a burst of
static regular as clockwork that drowned all AM
reception for a few seconds every 8 minutes. Never
did track it down, but managed to cure it by moving to
Dorset.

Quoting a previous Nicholas Mead contribution:-

~

When I lived in Doncaster we used to get a burst of
static regular as clockwork that drowned all AM
reception for a few seconds every 8 minutes. Never
did track it down, but managed to cure it by moving to
Dorset.

That seems a bit of a drastic solution!

Here in this part of London village there's basically no chance of tuning in to stuff on AM beyond the very strong stations intended to be consumed by local villagers. Certainly no 'DX listening' to things from adjacent villages such as Kent and Essex.

Richard wrote about:

Severe Interference Problem??<

I have recently been experiencing the same problem, a terrible buzz right across the AM band, its making any medium wave listening almost impossible unless it's a station with a strong signal, but even then there's a constant buzz in the background.
At first, I, thought it may have been a noisy central heating system somewhere locally as their thermostats do cause interference, but now I'm not so sure, its just to severe. I've had this for the last 6–8weeks and now I'm getting pretty P****D off......so if anybody does have any ideas I'd be grateful.

Andy

Quoting a previous Andy contribution:-

~

I have recently been experiencing the same problem, a terrible buzz
right across the AM band, its making any medium wave listening almost
impossible unless it's a station with a strong signal, but even then
there's a constant buzz in the background.

Roughly speaking, whereabouts do you live?

Nicholas Mead wrote:
How thorough were you in switching off all your
appliances? Did you do them one at a time (not a task
I'd relish I have to say) or all in one go?
When I lived in Doncaster we used to get a burst of
static regular as clockwork that drowned all AM
reception for a few seconds every 8 minutes.

Years ago, we had an electrical interference that would come on every few minutes and last for about a minute or two and then stop. It was tracked down to a water pump in a block of flats opposite us.

—

This e-mail has come from

Martin Rosen

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Andy P <...> said:

I have recently been experiencing the same problem, a terrible buzz
right
across the AM band, its making any medium wave listening almost
impossible
unless it's a station with a strong signal, but even then there's a
constant
buzz in the background.
At first, I, thought it may have been a noisy central heating system
somewhere locally as their thermostats do cause interference, but now
I'm
not so sure, its just to severe. I've had this for the last 6–8weeks and
now
I'm getting pretty P****D off......so if anybody does have any ideas I'd
be
grateful.

Andy

I believe that low energy light bulbs can also be an offender.
Andrew

Cheviot Slymey <...> said:
How thorough were you in switching off all your
appliances? Did you do them one at a time (not a task
I'd relish I have to say) or all in one go?
When I lived in Doncaster we used to get a burst of
static regular as clockwork that drowned all AM
reception for a few seconds every 8 minutes. Never
did track it down, but managed to cure it by moving to
Dorset.

I did them one at a time to try and find out which may be causing the problem with no result and it is nothing obvious,

The interferiance is constant 24 hours a day, I proved this by getting up at 3 in the morning (nothing unusual for me) At that time the only things on are the fridge freezers and the lights and i even went around turning them off,

As i said before the only cure i have found so far is to actually turn off the mains which is not something you can leave off,

The strange thing is this not only affects mains powered equipment but also portables,

Sorry to hear Andy is also having problems, Hope you can get it sorted!

Richard

Martin Rosen said:
 

Years ago, we had an electrical interference that would come on every
few minutes and last for about a minute or two and then stop. It was
tracked down to a water pump in a block of flats opposite us.

Similar thing happened to me at my previous address but it turned out to be a neighbour's faulty boiler. It was worse on FM. Ofcom came round and tracked it down for me and the neighbour very kindly dealt with it. I mentioned a different source of interference to the Offcom officer to the AM bands (a buzz/ hum every 20Khz or so, especially close to the telephone and leccy sockets) and he told me Ofcom no longer bother to investigate any interference problems with AM.

My neighbour here has a new set-top box (for digital telly) that knocks out most of LW, parts of MW and SW below about 9000Khz. Luckily, this noise only seems to cover a very small area of my house.

It's a weird thing interference on AM. I travel around large parts of East Anglia by bicycle and usually listen to Arrow on 675 en-route and you'd be amazed at the places where terrible interference crops up- often along quiet lanes/ farm tracks and bridleways, miles form the nearest house or visible power cables. I did hear someone mention they thought it could be Filingdales (Yorks?) doing some massive power radar thing to intercept terrorist missiles. Or something.

Regards
Giles.
 

Christopher England wrote:

Roughly speaking, whereabouts do you live?<

I'm in South Norwood Chris, and it's local to my residence as Richard also found out, I think I need to do a bit of detective work. It's something that has started over the last couple of months and is constantly there 24/7.

Andy

Andy P <...> said:
Richard wrote about:

Severe Interference Problem??<

I have recently been experiencing the same problem, a terrible buzz
right
across the AM band, its making any medium wave listening almost
impossible
unless it's a station with a strong signal, but even then there's a
constant
buzz in the background.
At first, I, thought it may have been a noisy central heating system
somewhere locally as their thermostats do cause interference, but now
I'm
not so sure, its just to severe. I've had this for the last 6–8weeks and
now
I'm getting pretty P****D off......so if anybody does have any ideas I'd
be
grateful.

Andy

Thermostats seem to be a major cause of strife. I have long noted the intermittent type problem in built up areas on Sunday lunchtimes, which I have always attributed to electric ovens when the Sunday roast is underway.

Other causes seem to be worn brushes on electric motors e.g. drills, vacumn cleaners (sic) and other domestic appliances.

Rgds

Ted

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