During the recent cold snap in the Midwest I observed and increase in power-line RFI. I have no power line noise 80% of the time, it is very intermittent or non-existent on a typical day. When the temperatures dipped into the single digits noise was S9 on 40 and S7 on 20 and constant. It mostly disappeared when temperatures went above 20 F. My theory is it is related to the load on the lines, many homes on heat pumps switch to resistance heating below 20F and energy consumption soars. I believe I have observed similar issues on extremely hot summer days (>90F) as well. The noise is too intermittent for the utility to troubleshoot, disappearing for weeks at a time.
T.R. WR4T |
