Some news from the TVI war....

22.10.2008

Hi all,

More than one month without updating this blog, sorry for that..
Lots of things happened during this period, where should I start from?

Well, let's start with ALL time new ones.
VK9DWX on 20m
TN5SN on 17m

New ones on some bands (if my memory is correct)
- OX3KQ, 6W/DJ3JS, HR3/N6VI on 80m
- J28JA on 40m
Plus a few more certainly, I'm now exceeding 110 DXCC on 40m, and more than 70 on 80m...

What else is new here : QRM TVI in a neighbour TV set !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Starting point :
I live in a sub-urb surrounded with "ham friendly" neighbours who are not subject to TVI, whatever the band/power is.
But a "more distant" neighbour came to me house 4 weeks ago, yelling, shouting, threatening me to put down all my antennes because "I" was perturbating his TV....
Needless to say I do NOT have TVI in my own house !!!!!!!!!!!!!
Most of you, reading this, would say that this is again a faulty TV set, but this is hard to explain to someone stranger to our frequency world "When you don't speak in our radio, my TV is OK. When you speak, I can not watch it anymore..The problem is on your side !!!!!!!!!!!! So you stop it, or I'll take your antenna down!!!!!" (I'm staying polite here, but I'll you imagine his real vocabulary....)

That was the first time I saw him (he leaves a few blocks away from mine....). And he was the only one coming here.

Further steps:
No discussions were possible, even if I encouraged him to watch my TV set while transmitting on the air, and having his wife on the phone (to confirm he's perturbated while I'm not...). He refused. He also refused to "try" a few filters (high pass, braid breakers) ,that I have here in case of....He just shouted at me "I'll call the police, the city mayor, the lawyer, to put down your antennas !!!!!!!!!"...And he did those phone calls actually.
Both came at home, and I explained them the problem (old TV antenna, old TV coaxial, broadband preamp etc).
I described them the way to officially control my set-up and his set-up (calling the French National frequency Association, called ANFR, depending on the French Ministry of telecommunications). Of course, I showed them I don't have any problems.....I proposed them to take so auctions in my set-up, and currently, I have:
( Ferrite beads on ALL cables inputs/outputs (power/RF)
- Low pass filter at the very output of the AL811H (Drake TV3300LP, 80 dB rejection above 41 MHz !)
- Air choke baluns at the very output of my shack for both antennes (Vertical ,and HexBeam).Some coaxial turns on a 15cm round support, 8 coax turns for the hexbeam, 12 for the vertical.
- Commercial common mode filters at the feeding point of each antenna (T4G from RadioWorks for the Vertical, CK5V for the hexbeam just below the base plate).
- 2 serial AC line filters (1 commercial, the other home-made based on Schaffner double-cell filter)
- I re-did my HF groundind using 3 ground rods, 120° apart, connected less than 2 meters from my shack with copper braid...

But this neighbour still has some issues....Every time I transmit with more than 200W, I get a phone call that vehemently says "stop this bull**** right now, or something will happen very soon !"

What more could I do...I guess nothing except trying to discuss, but he camps on his positions.

Today = End of story ? (hope so !)

Today, the French administration will come here to control both set-ups...I'm a bit scared (as I don't have any spectrum, I can not judge on my TX spectrum..and as this is my first "official" control). One point is that this is NOT AC-linked (while having him on the phone, and transmitting into a dummy load, he told me he wasn't perturbated...thatsall I could do....)
At the same time, I'm quite happy that hey reacted so quickly (they officially received the complaint 2 daya ago only). whateer the results of their measurements are, things will be clear !!!!!!!

I'll let you know after their visit for sure !!

73
Ronan, F8AFC