Home Theatre picking up signals?

[nick]

Nick,

Still trying to help. Presuming you can see this antenna thingy from your house, can you possibly take a photo (not too telephoto) from your house and post it here? Those of us fimiliar with this sort of thing might then be better able to advise .

Will try snap one tommorow 

[Crafty]

As been said before, Corrosion and bad connectors can act as diodes, and depending on cable lengths you could simmulate an inductor. All the components you need to pick up RF. :-)
If you change your cable lenght you might even pick up different frequencies :-p

[LAV]

As said before, approach the owner of the "antenna farm" in a friendly manner and if he's a decent radio ham with a concern for the image of his hobby, he's sure to be willing to help. 

[nick]

For those that were interested

[surfsup]

Holy Wack! 

I am amazed there is not a red light on top for air traffic warnings!

That is def the source of your problems. IMHO

Approach him and see what he can do to try get rid of the interference.

[Ampdog]

Was the photo taken at ordinary focal length/perspective - i.e. not with fore-shortening? (The house looks rather close.) The frequency appears to be low - about 5MHz, I would guess. Still.

If possible, also check whether others in your vicinity have complaints. We have similar situations here without any interference.

[LAV]

Lovely setup  (Yes, I am also a radio ham)...that antenna is a Yagi antenna for HF. HF in ham radio terms is broadly defined
as 0 - 30 Mhz. Most HF beam (directional) antennas operate from 10 Mhz upwards, below 7 Mhz the sizes become very large and wire antennas are preferred.

As said before, radio amateurs have a strict code of conduct, and the installation has to conform to certain requirements for good earthing, there are output power limits and equipment must provide "clean" output, i.e. no severe harmonics and other nasties. The installation in the pic looks professional.

That said, it is also true that a very large (the largest?) percentage of interference issues occur because of the equipment being interfered with has not been designed to properly reject RFI.

Go and have a friendly chat with the guy.

[nick]

Was the photo taken at ordinary focal length/perspective - i.e. not with fore-shortening? (The house looks rather close.) The frequency appears to be low - about 5MHz, I would guess. Still.

If possible, also check whether others in your vicinity have complaints. We have similar situations here without any interference.

Pic was taken with my 300D with the 18-55 kit lens, I was ducking next to a wall to avoid the setting sun but yes, it is almost 2x his two storey house 

[Ampdog]

LAV,

Digressing somewhat.  That antenna appears to be huge, judging by the size of the building - almost two rooms' width? That's why I guessed around 5 MHz. Are there still ham bands down there? This guy might also just want to receive something special there.

[LAV]

LAV,

Digressing somewhat.  That antenna appears to be huge, judging by the size of the building - almost two rooms' width? That's why I guessed around 5 MHz. Are there still ham bands down there? This guy might also just want to receive something special there.

You're right, it's difficult to judge the size based on the pic alone, but even for 7 MHz (40m band) a large Yagi would typically have elements of around 15m in length (which of course those in the pic could be, I suppose). The ham bands in SA go down to 160m which would be 1.8 Mhz-ish or so.

[nick]

Had a chat to the guy as for most of the weekend I could hear him talking. Buzzed his gate and asked him if hes operating his radio at the moment as Im picking up some interference, he asked what system it was I told him a Sansui and he said sorry I must take it back to Hifi Corp as its probably non-ICASA stuff.. Said he has a guy up the road who complains he is all over his TV too. Then he took us inside and showed us his kit.. 15m antenna, he was busy chatting with guys on Gough island who are there doing research. Switched over to some guys on Marian island and then just scanned channels to show us what he picks up. Was morse code on one or two, some spanish people etc. Asked him if he knows the woodpecker stuff in Russia said yeh can pick it up, apparently we in South Africa have something similair we have on some island..

Very interesting. He suggested those magnets on the power or try and earth the unit (which it isnt). Will try remove speaker wires and see if its one of those as the rear wires are quite a few metres long.. Said an entry level kit would be about R4k and then I can use a wire antenna? or something.. Picked him up on my home built yebo radio but cant hear a word he is saying as he is on SSB and said its converting it to DC or something.

[LAV]

Very interesting, hey? 

What he's talking about is that not all equipment is properly screened against interference or has been designed to reject interference. That is why some kit (not designed to receive RF) will, while others won't. Try the clamp-on ferrite beads.

[surfsup]

Personaly I think this guys attitude stinks. To simply tell someone to return there equipment as its not good is rediculous. Considering he's encroaching on everybody via his monstrasity of an antenna farm in his back yard. IMHO he is being very selfish. If he was my neighbour I would by 2x 18 inch mother of all subs and blast him at odd hours of the night. Share and share alike. When he complained I would tell him to buy a better house as the insulation is clrealy crap on his one.

[Viagara]

he's encroaching on everybody via his monstrasity of an antenna farm in his back yard. IMHO he is being very selfish.

You do have a point

[Shonver]

He may be right, though. But first get Mr Cook* to come check his rig out.



*Back in the days of CB radio Mr Cook was the local GPO guy everyone feared, as he was reputed to come down on people who were running illegal transceivers ("open" channels/too high output power/overmodulation).