Kitz Forum
Broadband Related => ADSL Issues => Topic started by: waltergmw on August 15, 2009, 05:32:15 PM
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Hi everybody, especially Ezzer,
We've got a lot of "horsey-culture" around here and acres of paddocks all divided with electric fences.
I.e. lots of high voltage spikes and dI / dT every second or so and an antenna system to beat the BBC !
BT have recently discovered a major noise source where the clicking can be heard at the green cabinet over 2 km away.
Sadly they are trying to mask the problem with filters rather than tackling the owners of the said fencing.
Is anybody aware of a suitable device to clamp on the the high voltage power source or are there any such devices which are better protected against Electrical Impulse Noise transmission which is far from random !
Kind regards,
Walter
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Copper cable is good (short circuit) :lol:
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you can get clip on ferrite rings to go around and wires emmiting noise. You'll see them on things like your monitor cable if your using a pc, that inoccuous small cylinder thing on the cable part way along.
The're avalable from such places as maplins.
One word of warning. Earlyer this year i found out the hard way the current for electric horse fencing......... :hmm: (suddenly imagined a version of the film tron with 2 mares fencing with glowing foils :lol:)
is notably stronger than that of pig fencing.......... :hmm:(me and my imagination ::))
Pig fencing would give you a bit of a start, the horse stuff
I was carrying a ladder between the fence and a thick crop of nasty stingy pointy weed,plant type stuff. My back side touched the fence and I couldnt stop my self from jumping into the nasty stuff. My bum cheek smarted from that for hours :no: (ok, stop that you lot it wasn't that funny) the next day I put on waterproofs, the hoist guys found my tale of woe tear jearking (with hysterics >:()
Mind you the day went worse as i jumped over a barbed wire fence taking care not to injure myself further. trying to land on what looked like a bit of grass bridging a dyke. It was grassy on the top but it wasn't solid earth underneath. when my feet made contact they carried on going up to my knees. Horse field, a dyke filled with something which turns out to be soft warm and smelly >:(. Customer said "oh you can come in" "trust me on this one, you really don't want me to"
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@ezzer,
I must admit that your vivid descriptions of events you clearly remember well did make me smile !
I'm a bit puzzled by your comments on radio as I often find at least tone 46 knocked out which I think is around 198 kHz.
I've also just found this long electric fence REIN link on the other side:-
http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/btsupplier/f/3393473-rein-problems-who-fixes.html?vc=1
It seems the first thing we should do is to cut down any vegitation touching the electric fences.
Kind regards,
Walter
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I just wish there was a way of DF-ing REIN events that might only last a few milliseconds and only occur once a day. Here's a RouterStats record of a typical event.
(https://forum.kitz.co.uk/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Ffarm3.static.flickr.com%2F2559%2F3819286753_347be69107.jpg&hash=d659aa2531dbbc0a0586f6008d5618477acff987)
and to add to the bitloading debate - for me. this is a good one!
(https://forum.kitz.co.uk/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Ffarm4.static.flickr.com%2F3556%2F3806819079_06a739bdf5.jpg&hash=5afd2c346c4924db6eddd7dfdc568ab34d1943d4)
I'd value any thoughts Ezzer might have.
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Won't Fibre To The Cabinet stop a lot of this? We are all getting aren't we? ;D
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I remember a REIN fault where the event only lasts 2 seconds. How are you supposed to be able to locate the source in that time is beyond me. the only reason I guessed what the cause was is that the problem only started when they changed the ups through which the router was connected. Eventualy they relented and tried the router away from the ups, problem gone
And Walter Ohh I certainly remember that one in detail. A friends father used to live in the house in question. A bunch of us went there by boat to our friends wedding (his father was the local vicar) and theres several stories I can repeat (and one I cannot) about that day. then getting zapped by that fence earlyer this year and going home smelling of horse manure. I've had a few nice comments about my anecdotes so I'll keep comming up with them while i've still got some
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Just don't try and relieve yourself anywhere near an electric fence :-X :'(
Here is a leaflet (http://anonym.to/?http://www.scribd.com/doc/5576700/Is-an-Electric-Fence-Causing-Interference-to-Your-Telephone) that may be of some use in tracking down the fault. It would seem that the Australians and New Zealanders have a fair bit of experience with this type of thing!
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>> Just don't try and relieve yourself anywhere near an electric fence
Ouch! :'(
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@orainsear: many thanks for the link to the leaflet - makes interesting reading - but what I desperately need, as waltergmw knows, is a simple and inexpensive way of recording what is going on, on power and phone lines and being able to leave this with folks around the area for a couple of days to build up a picture of when and how the REIN strikes and how strong the effects are at any given location.
A spare Hawk might be nice!
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Attention all Gurus and especially @Kitz and Ezzer,
The General's problem could well be quite a challenge for us all.
Unless somebody has a lot of experience with scanners and their data capture it seems that we should obtain say at least three identical modems hooked up to laptops with plenty of disk storage and all configured into a logmein account so they can all be remotely accessed. We need powerful modems which can record at a high frequency perhaps with Routerstats lite to reduce the modem processor load ?
The next part of the plan is Ezzer's area. I've discovered, acording to SamKnows that, although all phone numbers are in the 01980 area, Winterbourne Stoke is part of the Shrewton Exchange and Enford is part of the Netheravon exchange yet they BOTH pick up the same REIN ? The Netheravon exchange is almost due south of Enford on the road down to the East-West A303. I suppose this might be the start of locating the transmitter's position? Can Ezzer confirm that it's unlikely that two exchanges would transmit REIN between them ? If so then we have a powerful transmitter capable of infecting presumably overhead lines running several miles apart?
The plot thickens !
Kind regards,
Walter
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is a simple and inexpensive way of recording what is going on, on power and phone lines
As walter suggests using a modem/laptop combination would certainly work to monitor the phone lines. To monitor the electrical lines you'd need a power analyser with data logging capability, and unfortunately these are not particularly cheap.
If you were able to locate the offending signal with a scanner it may well be possible to triangulate the source.
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Gentlefolk,
I suggest this is not a Rein (Random) problem but one on intermittent but repeating cycles. Whilst high voltage transmission lines are therfore unlikely to be the immediate cause directly through electrical discharges, but they could just possibly be involved as an antenna system from the propagator. However surely the power supplies and modems would be unlikely to act in identical ways to produce similar noise drop patterns over large tracts of the countryside ? Thus phone line noise injection seems the more likely source ?
As well as the possible sources listed by the General, water towers are often used for both telemetry systems and cellular stations.
Kind regards,
Walter
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Sorry if I sound argumentative Walter, but REIN is Repetitive Electrical Impulse Noise. It's characterised by repeated sharp noise spikes, as opposed to random noise which meanders up and down.
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@ Roseway,
Sorry, my semantics are wrong - the point I was trying to make was that it does appear that there is some sort of an intermittent pattern but not one would associate with electrical discharge from power lines which would e.g. be unlikely to stop for the week ends.
Kind regards,
Walter
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It does seem rather more likely that the noise is being propagated via telephone cables, and a repetitive nature would certainly point towards an electric fence pulse type signal. If there is a short circuit in the fence, radio frequency energy will be generated, and if there are any telephone cables close by, (particularly if they run parallel) the fence will indeed act as an antenna. The longer the parallel run the the more energy can be transmitted.
The interference will probably worsen with increasing air/ground humidity and heat.
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Some really interesting ideas here. I'm going to go hunting for electric fences along the course of the buried cable and will endeavour not to touch the things! I've been out several times previously and don't believe there are any with 200 m of the cable, but I may need to wander further afield. Normally, they are used (at least round here) as a temporary measure, but there may be something I have missed.
The interference is repetitive (4 single, millisecond-long spikes per day at roughly 6 hour intervals - the timing seems to drift on a 6-day cycle) and does get worse (sometimes) in heavy and persistent rain, but equally, we can have a bad week in the middle of a spell of dry weather, like this last week. I would have expected the capacitor charging and discharge of an electric fence to be much more frequent than that? Oh yes, we usually only see the lunchtime REIN on Mondays to Thursdays, rarely on Fridays and almost never at weekends - which to me suggests some sort of commercial activity.
Perversely, since mentioning the possible links between the two villages on the blog (http://winterbournestoke-thedigitaldivide.blogspot.com/2009/08/some-interesting-new-possibilities.html (http://winterbournestoke-thedigitaldivide.blogspot.com/2009/08/some-interesting-new-possibilities.html), the lunchtime REIN event, consistent for several months, has been very odd this week - shifts in timing, missing days, etc. I guess I am becoming somewhat paranoid about this!
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Attention all Gurus and especially @Kitz and Ezzer,
The General's problem could well be quite a challenge for us all.
Unless somebody has a lot of experience with scanners and their data capture it seems that we should obtain say at least three identical modems hooked up to laptops with plenty of disk storage and all configured into a logmein account so they can all be remotely accessed. We need powerful modems which can record at a high frequency perhaps with Routerstats lite to reduce the modem processor load ?
The next part of the plan is Ezzer's area. I've discovered, acording to SamKnows that, although all phone numbers are in the 01980 area, Winterbourne Stoke is part of the Shrewton Exchange and Enford is part of the Netheravon exchange yet they BOTH pick up the same REIN ? The Netheravon exchange is almost due south of Enford on the road down to the East-West A303. I suppose this might be the start of locating the transmitter's position? Can Ezzer confirm that it's unlikely that two exchanges would transmit REIN between them ? If so then we have a powerful transmitter capable of infecting presumably overhead lines running several miles apart?
The plot thickens !
Kind regards,
Walter
Once a fault gets refered via the REIN team then the router stats are recorded via "woosh"
If one source is affecting an area covering more than one exchange area then it may either be a line of sight beam causing the problem. particuarly near county hall in norwich you notice the car radio picking up a distinct buzz in a patch only a few meters accross. later it occured to me all the spots where this is picked up form a straight line.
I had a rein fault which covered several square miles. It was being transmitted back along the mains. 2 other rein chaps came up on this one, one from london who compiled the accreditation for REIN the other fromthe BT labs; he had the fancy spectral kit with the directional antennea (wish I had that kit,would make life a lot easyer on these faults but the cost is increadible) we found the source in one house. It was a 240-110v inverter about the size of a common plug. Walter doyou have an american air base near you ?
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Ezzer,
Some more interesting ideas there too. Hadn't thought about voltage inverters, but living close to the Army and AirForce it's a fair bet that several of my neighbours will be running inverters on kit bought in the US or Europe.
Another thought, and I thought I'd get a few opinions before I started wielding my side-cutting pliers! Just spotted a neighbours dropwire which they have wired to the wire netting covering their thatched roof - the roof runs under and mainly parallel to, a 3-phase powerline - which in turn connects to a drop pole. My thinking is, damaged insulation on the dropwire connecting to a large aerial? Is this a completely barking idea, or should I try the experiment?
(https://forum.kitz.co.uk/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Ffarm4.static.flickr.com%2F3460%2F3844511993_5d4ff0ce1f.jpg&hash=9138f497c17a11994fdf61ca20017a5b80315022)
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One thing to remember about REIN is "anything electrical" can cause the problem. you have to keep an openmind whilst looking for the source.it will be all too easy to get fogged buy getting a suspect in mind
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I know you are right about it being anything electrical - but it's helpful every now and again to have a few more suspect things to go and look at - and tick off the ever-growing list. As an example, my hunt for electric fences in one half of the village this morning led to a mains-powered one that I and everyone else in the village had forgotten about. The wire is disconnected, but is the unit still wired up and chuntering away to itself - locked away in someone's garage?
That, in turn, led to the dropwire wired onto the thatch! At least that's a new take on 'clutching at straws!'
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@ Ezzer & Roseway,
We've got ourselves a bit of a double REIN topic in this thread. I started it due to the horsey-culture around Ewhurst but the General's problems are on Salisbury Plain, some 30-40 miles west of the Guildford area.
I've got enough to go on for Ewhurst thank you very much but the general has a far more serious and ongoing problem on the Plain.
With all the military and their research establishments, there is every chance of static or rotating RF beams beams (Radars) but as this is such a short and reasonably repititive working-days spike it would seem more likely to be due to the switching on or off of some plant or possibly some form of discharge to earth causing an arc. As it repeats it's probably a stationary source and as the signal amplitude is different in the two villages it possibly suggests the source is closer to one than the other if the pick-up mechanism is similar. However a different compass bearing for unshielded wires might well affect the amplitude.
I would second Ezzer's comments about anything electrical; also note that whenever you have an alternating current (or even a changing magnetic flux) you have the potential for a transformer so the General's wire netting doesn't even have to be physically connected to the drop wire. (Hence the problem with long lengths of parallel cables.)
Kind regards,
Walter
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Guys,
The horsey theme has to continue. Spurred on by Ezzer, waltergmw, orainsear and others, I realised that they had saddled me with afternoon of bimbling through the depths of the countryside trying to find electric fences - which I duly did.
So, taking the bit between my teeth, I set of on Shank's pony towards the next village. The bottom line is I found two operating electric fences that might be an issue. Neither can be seen from the road, which is why I hadn't found them previously. The layout of one of these can be found here:
(https://forum.kitz.co.uk/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Ffarm3.static.flickr.com%2F2478%2F3845422435_f37ebfbae3.jpg&hash=71325882e899993e12bce830e8cfa237a8abc4a7)
You might just be able to see that the last section of tape on the right hand run is lying on the ground - the unducted BT aluminium cable is somewhere this side of the hedgeline you can see towards the back of the photo.
(https://forum.kitz.co.uk/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Ffarm3.static.flickr.com%2F2490%2F3845535425_2f81571a93.jpg&hash=bff20f91e7a8fb97c4988d0be28e0758e892d16c)
The second fence is on a spur off the main 3 phase supply and the telephone line and again has sections running parallel to both the power and the telephone lines.
The first fence (horse fence) appears to have a section lying on the ground and presumably discharging to earth at this point. Both have vegetation touching them, so presumably in wet weather...
The energizer units (battery powered) are from different manufacturers and have different discharge periods. This suggests that every so often the discharges would be in phase and so if any signal from these spark generators was coupling into the power lines, or the BT cable (by RF or by earth leakage), then every so often, there might be a double whammy that could conceivably cause routers to lose sync.
I'd love to hear any thoughts before I go off to tackle the fence owners - who, thankfully, also suffer from the effects of the REIN.
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I think that you've done a terrific bit of investigation, and it certainly seems likely that an electric fence with a partial short circuit to ground will cause that sort of interference. Hopefully the fence owner will be reasonable.
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@ General,
I believe you say that you get an occasional massive short-duration noise spike to a zero noise margin.
You are probably right that there will be a race condition between the two fences but given that you've been looking at this problem for months you might expect that at some time you might have several peaks close together if that was the main cause of the massive spike problem. That doesn't mean that the fences aren't causing some sort of problem which would usually be characterised by a clicking noise at the fence frequency. Have you tried the quiet line test 17070 on those closest to the problem ? Ezzer might also have some comments on E side aluminium cables and whether they are likely to be screened ?
Continuing with the other idea that it is some form of significant energy broadcast occasionally, it would be a good idea to run routerstats lite at the highest sample rate that you dare. This would then provide more line plots which might give you a better idea of the shape and actual duration of the noise event. Do note that if you have a modem with a "slow" processor you might well see drops to zero which just indicate that Routerstats was unable to obtain a reading, but any correlation with the speed graph where the sync speed has changed is often a good indicator that there was a noise spike at that time.
I believe you said that you have access to a 2Wire modem. If so it's just possible that you could glean further data from the extensive diagnostic information available. Perhaps you could also lend the modem to the other village and / or your fellow sufferers as well ? (I shall be posting another thread on Sunday morning wiith some diagnostic pictures in the hopes of improving a very long line.)
Kind regards,
Walter
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@waltergmw
Some interesting ideas for me to try there. Like you, I already have 'spare' routers deployed round the village and folks are running RouterStats/RouterStats Lite, but I haven't tried the very high sampling rates, so will give that a try. All the traces from round the village look more or less like the one I posted in the 5th entry in this thread.
The 2-Wire detailed diagnostics didn't show anything particularly exciting in over 6 months of monitoring them so I'm not too hopeful of that route.
Something else you said rang an alarm bell. It comes down to what BT define as a D/side cable and an E/side cable. Checking back though some documents from Openreach, they refer to the 3.4 km of backhaul to the exchange as D/side cable linking the PCP to an SCP (secondary connection point I presume). I'd never really questioned that description before, but I wonder if Openreach have been confusing BT with this description? Have decisions been taken on the basis this was a long and bad D/side cable, when in fact it is a log and bad E/side cable? Does it matter? Another one for Ezzer perhaps.
I have noticed something on one phone line that in retrospect had the same period as the electric fence http://winterbournestoke-thedigitaldivide.blogspot.com/2009/07/tale-of-two-dropwires.html (http://winterbournestoke-thedigitaldivide.blogspot.com/2009/07/tale-of-two-dropwires.html)
This wasn't on a line close to the fence, but I guess it might depend on where in a cable bundle a particular pair sit. Those closest to the outside might be more prone to picking up extraneous noise than those closest to the core.
I'm off to see the farm owner this afternoon and will try the quiet line test whilst I'm there and will also set him up with RouterStats, if he is willing. I'll post again when I get back. Even if this isn't the cause, it's well worth eliminating it as a possibility as one of the things the REIN engineeer said (almost a year ago now!) was that there may be no single cause - it could be the convergence of several different effects.
I'll also watch out for your new thread, it looks interesting.
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@ general,
I had always assumed that D side meant Distribution and covered all components beyond the PSP and that E side similarly meant the Exchange side components.
(If you are VERY patient and have the tenacity you can sometimes get BT Openreach to explain their cost calculations in relation to the actual physical network and possibly the real costs of upgrading it.)
The 2Wire will show you the number and time to the nearest second of the retrains between each re-boot (i.e. usually power failure).
I believe that crosstalk is most likely between a faulty transmitting pair and all those in close proximity to it.
On an unshielded cable the outer pairs would seem more likely to pick up external noise.
Also note that if a screened cable is earthed at both ends it can cause circulating currents which can render the screen useless.
I believe BT O use different types of twisted pair phone cables probably installed at different times in their existence.
At one stage they used a single bundle, possibly with a more gentle twist, but others use more bundles so vary the contact point possibilities. (HELP Ezzer !)
I have found around here that frustrated but co-operative people will let me install my laptop attached to their modem which can be invaluable using logmein to monitor and record modem performance from my home and thus saving time and petrol. (You'll see some results in my next thread.)
Kind regards,
Walter
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I did once receive an email from a BT engineer direct to my website where he described how they discovered an electric fence discharging to the wet grass near a buried concentrator. BT now pay the farmer to cut the grass, believe it or not and there was no reason for this guy to make it up. He was one of the BT guys using the medium wave radio technique.
I would have thought that, damaging though such a massive discharge would be to BT cables, the frequency would be every few seconds (or the animals would not get the message) rather than several times a day. The above case was effectively continuous noise as far as the DSLAM was concerned. . Surely REIN on a daily basis or several times a day is more likely be linked to timers, discrete events or shift patterns in local industry - for example when do they switch on the milking machines and do they use stepper transformers on the farm from 440Volt three-phase down to something thay can safely use in a damp milking parlour. Does the electric fence get switched on and off when the beasts are in the stables?
I tried for months to locate a noise event somewhere between my house and the exchange in a town setting that happened every week day at "tea time" but got nowhere with it. Just too many industrial sites, too many concentrators and too few BT engineers. The felt I was getting 1 meg at worst so what was the problem? So now I am a mobile broadband dongler and that is a more stable broadband than the ADSL ever was.
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In putting my 2-Wire back in service, I did something really dumb and plugged the DSL line into the phone connector! Not surprisingly it didn't work, but I discovered something potentially useful. javascript:void(0);
The 2-Wire seemed to act as a microphone, picking up every little electrical noise in the house. When you tried to make a phone call (DECT phone), you could hear all this in the background - switches being thrown, the motor in the washing machine and there in the background was the steady tick, tick of the electric fence about a km away up the road.
Now I'm sure that this doesn't do the 2-Wire much good, but it seems it might be a useful diagnostic tool to get a feel for the level of electrical fug in which we all exist. You only have 4 or 5 seconds to listen to this before the phone disconects, but enough time to get an idea.
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Electric fence with a good earth; hello :hmm: that would increase the transmission of the fence dramaticaly, next point is it producing a noise that dsl can hear
None of the cabling is screened as far as I know and ther's onlyone engineer in this area who has screened internla cabling on their van ;)
Scp does mean secondary conection point and wouldbe a further extention to a pcp so for instance if the pcp was cab4 the 1st scp would be designated 4/1. there sometimes defined as a pillar due to the fact they're often of a pillar look. athough more typicaly a pillar would be not so much a connection point but a lightning protection unit.
E-side means exchange side, d-side distribution side. although typicaly this refers to cabling either side of a pcp it can be used to describe a situation relative to a point of intervention by an engineer just as someone say in the north of a country would still refer to north south relative to their position.
If your very close to an exchange then you may be on an EO or exchange only cable, not running though a cabinet, although there are the odd runs for several kilometers that are EO
Incidentaly you can get a reasonable directional location using a mw radio. the reffite core antennea is a coil of wire around a pencil sized rod. the rod picks up a signal best when perpendicuar to a transmitting wire. A few months back I found REIn comming off high voltage cables off the very large pylons. I could even put the source down to one of 2 cables of 6
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@Ezzer - picked up the fence from 100 metres away with my little Sony Walkman radio, tuned to 612 MHz with no aerial mods. Just to add to the excitement, they have another mains-powered fence a little further from the telephone and power lines which has greenery touching it along its entire length.
Spoke to the landowner this afternoon who, whilst 'sympathetic,' is clearly not interested in anything that might cost them money - even down to ensuring the fences are not shorting out. I can sort of understand their predicament, old fences cost a fortune to replace, a cheap-n-cheerful electric fence is a much cheaper alternative.
Unfortunately, they have a capped 512kbps connection which is running at just over 400kbps and that is clearly enough for their needs - so no incentive from the possibility of faster broadband there either.
So, even if we can prove this is causing a problem, I'm not sure we can get anything done about it.
Oh yes, with the aerial you suggested, are both ends plugged into the aerial socket, or just one?
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If it can be proved the electric fencing is the cause then legally the owners will have to do something about it
The aerial I was refering to is this type http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=859 as its the typical aerial in a mw radio. it would be positioned horizontaly within the radio
Sounds as if you have a traditional loop antennea without the ferrite core. the core changed the dynamics of the antennea so a smaller loop anbe used and so more compact. so both ends of the wire best be connected
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@Ezzer.
Thanks for the details. I took screwdriver to radio and that is the sort of aerial my little one is fitted with - which I guess accounts for the variation in signal strength when you waggle it and turn it. I guess even though I can pick up a transmission near the line of the BT cable, I need to try and persuade BT to see if they can hear it on their cable - and I suspect that is easier said than done.
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Do you think that the owners might agree to turning the fences off for a short while so you can check whether the clicking noise does cease when the fences are inactive?
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Maybe reasoning with the owners about this fence isn't going to do you any good. So if you are able to prove its this fence causing the noise then the only other option would be to put your wolly mask on get yourself a trackter and drive over the top of the fence lol. If it is there fence then legally they have to do something about it and put cost into getting it replaced otherwise they will be forced to do so anyway. Ezzer i think you should never be tasked near any farm fields EVER again cause you just seem to get yourself into bother when you are :lol:
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farmers field are unavoidable, but that one occasion I'll certainly remember. It was fasinating to watch Gryff Rees-Jones on the latest Rivers program. Seeing him going into Ranworth church (the offending field is the one between the church and ranworth broad) and seeing him negotiate the bridge at Potter heigham, he made it look easy.The exchange for there is an interesting one, have to open a gate toa house and drive up their driveway to access the "shed". http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00mbv0c/b00mbtxj/Rivers_with_Griff_Rhys_Jones_East/
When looking for REIN iniataly you do have to swing the radio at 90 degrees horiziontaly and verticaly due to the way the antennea picks up signals. If a lenght of wire emmits a signal imagine the signal being emmited like rings around the wire. now imagine the line of the ring passing through the lenght of the ferrite core of the reciving aerial, thats when its at its most sensitive.By turning the volumeof the radio down and then reorientating the radio allows you to pinpoint the source. If ever you see someone with a C.A.T. tracking underground cables before any excavation work the bottom of the C.A.T. has a cylindrical bulge.this has the same type antennea to locate an underground cable in the same way your trying to locate the source of REINhttp://www.essentialwaterservices.co.uk/cat.html
This is the manual for the type I use, the basics are very similar http://docs-europe.electrocomponents.com/webdocs/0125/0900766b80125b30.pdf
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That was a good programme and enjoyed it immensely - would've enjoyed it even more if I'd known it was Ezzer's field!
Absolutely no doubt that it is the fence causing the clicking noise, as the the connecting clamp 'accidentally' came adrift for a few seconds - the clicking stopped! It also gets fainter, the further you are away from the fence. In line of sight, I can pick it up at 100m. With an earth bank in between it is only detectable from 20m away.
Anyone have any good horse recipes?
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If its just clicking then I'll be less suspisious of it causing the dsl problems and yes it would be the fence. the clicking is often audible at lower frequencies so in rural areas hearing a slow click like a heartbeat over the phone line is common
I think of the other feild next to the church as my friends field as thats where the camp for the wedding reception was. I went back to the boat as I could put the cooker on to get some heat. another friend came along to occupy the other birth, same side as he cooker. Unfortunately he stretched out in the night and I was woken by his yelps of pain. the cooker was at the end of his bed. I've heard of cooked sole but only the fish version before.
The journey there was eventfull. We had borrowed the boat several times before. we thought it would be a good way to get to the wedding. My friend who burnt his foot drove to the village (almost killing us on the way, phew!)
We stopped at his mums house where I heard a dog approching in the back garden as I could hear the sound of claws on the paving. It wasn't a dog,it was his brother, whonever cuts his toe nails :sick: I wish this bit was a joke but it's not, unbeliveable.
So theres 5 of us on this boat having a great time chugging along on our way to the church.The chap to whomthe boat belongs was given it ( :'(I want one) and has hardly used it. so half way "Uh oh!" "where are you steering were headding straight for that boat" "no streering, the wheels gone loose!" we finaly crash into the enbankment; "so where's the toolbox"......"you're joking". had to find a screwdriver or something close to, whats the only thing avalable? Would you belive a set of nail clippers, guess who's :sick: I just had to keep telling my self well he never uses them.
Half lashed a makeshift link to the rudder so we could make it to a private jetty to further the repair, chap comes along shouting "this is private you can't moor here...oh hello Ch....." he and his daughter knows the one with the soon to be singed foot so I go up to to house looking for a few spanners and hopefully some thing to wipe the chain grease off my hands as there now blue as thats the only way we could steer. As the're helpuffully looking for some tools her cat comes out. Now i have a way with cats and it was very friendly. So as i looked to see the progress of wheres the tool box I was stroking her white cat,yes a white cat, or at least it was before I realised :-[ don'tthink they spotted the fur stuck to the grease on the palm of my hand
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So, if the regular pulses aren't the problem, what should I be listening for? I can see myself hanging round the fields in the wee small hours, so I'd like to have some idea!
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Hi General,
I think it's quite possible that some broadband lines could be affected by the fences but if the local users aren't worried so perhaps you shouldn't be either?
In any event the ticking will probably be causing a continuous low-level problem and possibly a larger problem when the vegetation is soaking wet.
The major short-term spikes would seem to be far more of a problem as they seem to affect others much more seriously.
Kind regards,
Walter
P S Ezzer is doing very well as a comedian so perhaps that's better than his day job ? !!!!!!
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Well rain is forecast for the next couple of days - we'll see if the REIN gets worse - and if the fences are shorting to earth. As I am one of the 'local' users - actually nearer to the fence than the owner of the thing, I am very definitely worried about it, his other two fences and the three fences equidistant from us. If they are all putting a signal onto the line, I can't see how it can do anything other than cause problems.
As for Ezzer, I'd like to hear him do a new voice-over for the 'Rivers' programme!
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Thinking about a book. I could write one about the trip to the emirates cup for last year alone. Then There's the story about taking a twinkle on the boat at night involving my exlodger, oh the time he set himself on fire by sleeping with lit candles, with the following hospital trip, and his wifes following discovery. the evil trick done with a bottle of larger and beetroot juice,oh talking of evil tricks marzipan with batteries and a few wires to get rid of squatters from a friends house. the moles and the football, oh god! I think i do have enough for a book. :-[ Oh just remembered the one about the cayenne pepper,the milk bottles and the burning caravan :-X
:blush: Your normaly looking for a constant noise :-X
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@waltergmw
Pleased I listened and replaced the Netgear DG834PN with the 2-Wire. I immediately got a 15% increase in sync speed and 3 days later, I've got an increase in the IP profile from 1250kbps to 1500kbps. That may not seem much to those on a reasonable speed, but trust me, it makes a helluva difference doing even basic things like web-browsing.
Interestingly, the IP profile recovered, despite me turning off the router for 3 hours every night to try and miss the major REIN event. I don't believe the router will hold sync long enough for the SNR target to drop, but I can dream!
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@ The general,
That's good news re your broadband speed but it doesn't solve the REIN problem.
As you have now proven that there is a widespread effect affecting a number of broadband users, I wonder if you should be tackling Ofcom's ex Radiocommunications Agency staff?
Given that the military might well be involved, or could themselves be affected by the noise events, a suitable official approach and a request to access their test equipment might help solve the problem ?
Kind regards,
Walter
P.S. Don't forget to check the water towers carefully.
P.P.S. As you've got a number of local village web sites why not circulate them all asking if others can also observe the spike so you might then draw a coverage diagram.
Anquet software would then let you define a number common of high ground areas.
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@ waltergmw
I like the Ofcom idea, although I had already raised the issue with Ofcom in general terms with no success. However, your idea is much more specific, so I will follow it up.
Our immediate neighbouring villages do not seem to suffer the same problem, but at least one of them has fibre to the exchange and good copper, so may not be likely to see it anyway.
I've got the Anquet software now and am sorting out the mapping this weekend when I've got some time. I've checked the towers v carefully now, but cannot see anything out of place, odd aerials, boxes etc. When I have time and the harvest is over, I hope to have a much more detailed look and chat to the site manager.
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@ Ezzer and waltergmw
I finally tracked down a useful document with some very specific advice on tracking down RFI. It builds on the information the Ezzer gave on the use of a ferrite aerial for DF-ing purposes and it has some interesting bits on detecting ground transmissions.
http://www.rsgb.org/emc/pdfs/leaflets/emc4interferencetoamateurreceptionmembers.pdf (http://www.rsgb.org/emc/pdfs/leaflets/emc4interferencetoamateurreceptionmembers.pdf)
I hope it is of some use to others.
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That's a very interesting document. Thanks for finding it.
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@ general,
Indeed a very useful document produced by people who need to know about these things.
I'm still as puzzled as ever by your noise spike problem.
As it appears to be a weekday single spike at differing, but regular, times of the day it must surlely be some sort of commercial or military plant.
Being a "single" spike it could be caused by starting or stopping plant, but if that were so you might expect a "double spike" i.e. stop for rest break and restart afterwards.
That suggests it's only the stopping OR the starting activity which produces the serious effect. If you can detect the frequency then you might observe much lower magnitude signals at other times. Could there be any plant using regenerative breaking - although that might be expected to continue for a long period ? Could there be any plant using high voltage AC or DC circuit breakers with faulty arc suppression equipment? Could there still be an old mercury arc rectifier or similar being used somewhere ? Could there be an 33 Kv to 11 Kv auto tap changer causing the problem - unlikely as it's only during week days unless it's only a heavy commercial load causing a particular tap to be be used ? Perhaps taking your radio to the local bulk supply points might show something ?
If it is not an industrial process perhaps another avenue might be to check on some form of military test transmission used to test the effectiveness of devices used to filter or isolate noise transmissions. Chatting up the military and their contractors would seem like a good idea if only they can be persuaded to co-operate.
In any event it does seem necessary to record and then analyse the frequency and the duration of the spike over all the regular transmission periods observed.
Expanding one of my earlier thoughts, if you were to draw two circles on the intercept line between your villages; one centred half way along the line the other offset by the difference in signal size it would describe an envelope for further investigation. You probably then need to contact every village and hamlet within the area and possibly those near to it to observe their ADSL performance.
To recap on the known information re Enford and you, it suggests a high power device capable of causing similar effects on different ADSL lines in two different villages 12.5 km apart served by two different telephone exchanges. I'm guessing that it is improbable that the spike is either caused by or reflected from one exchange to the other. That could be investigated if BT's REIN engineers could observe and record the spike at the exchange end on the lines known to suffer. They could also observe other ADSL lines in the two exchanges and any others closeby.
Let's hope some others here can come up with more ideas.
Kind regards,
Walter
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Just to clarify a little. There are 4 REIN spikes a day (at least that is what the BT REIN specialists reckoned) which occur at roughly 6 hour intervals. Of these, the one at 0130 (+/- 2hours) happens every night, regardless of weather and cause routers across the village to lose sync.
The REIN at 1350 (+/- 2 hours) also causes routers to lose sync, but tends only to occur Monday to Thursday and is rare on Fridays, weekends or Bank Holidays - which fits with some sort of commercial activity, but not with the military.
The other two REIN spikes are rarely seen and equally rarely cause a loss of sync and then only in extremely bad weather.
We have found one TV in the village that shows interference when the 1350 REIN spike hits and at the same time the owners router loses sync - the info from the RSGB indicates that we might be able to use this as grounds to get Ofcom to investigate.
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You mentioned previously that the timing of the pulses tends to drift. Is there any pattern to the drift?
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The timings of the pulses are on a 6-day cycle. Here is some data from a while ago when I was still recording every day!
(https://forum.kitz.co.uk/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Ffarm3.static.flickr.com%2F2605%2F3873547979_2041490246.jpg&hash=8a8c520b904632e02daa85b2d9ecd829a1d2af31)
I've never had enough time to record (manually) all 4 REIN peaks every day!
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If the timing of the pulse was a bit more regular I was thinking it may have been something like a weather radar, although I suppose it is still conceivable that something like that could be causing the pulse.
Picking up on Walters points, is there anything 'industrial' going on in the area where they could be working to shift patterns?
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Salibury Plain training area to the north, Boscombe Down to the north so loads of military and civilian radar and radio - but they tend to operate all day, every day. All, unsurprisingly, deny it could be them. Other than that, no industry other than farming. Half the farms in the area are also affected, so have a vested interest in finding the source.
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I managed almost a whole week with no sign of REIN and a raised IP profile of 1500 kbps. I even got hopeful that I might see a drop in the SNR target. It wasn't to be. Heavy rain yesterday and the IP profile has dropped to 1250kbps. Grrr!
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Things going from bad to worse. For once, we suffered a loss of sync on a Friday lunchtime. Detailed log from the 2-Wire looks as follows: Grateful for any ideas!
INF 2009-09-04T13:44:45+01:00 lmd: dsl0: down (signal lost)
WRN 2009-09-04T13:44:45+01:00 lmd: qos0: admin_gen: unable to lookup clfy netdev pvc0: No such file or directory
WRN 2009-09-04T13:44:45+01:00 lmd: Previous log entry repeated 31 times
WRN 2009-09-04T13:44:46+01:00 vrsip: Broadband connection lost
INF 2009-09-04T13:45:04+01:00 lmd: dsl0: up G.DMT Annex A interleaved Rate:864/448 Max:864/516
INF 2009-09-04T13:45:04+01:00 lmd: dsl0: Margin:12.0/9.0 Atten:63.0/31.5 Power:15.1/12.3
INF 2009-09-04T13:45:04+01:00 lmd: dsl0: Country: {B5} Vendor: {TSTC} Specific: {0}
WRN 2009-09-04T13:45:04+01:00 lmd: qos0: admin_gen: unable to lookup clfy netdev pvc0: No such file or directory
WRN 2009-09-04T13:45:04+01:00 lmd: Previous log entry repeated 31 times
INF 2009-09-04T13:45:05+01:00 voiced: Set 0 IP to 519b:7cc2:600:0:100::
INF 2009-09-04T13:45:05+01:00 voiced: reset port 0
INF 2009-09-04T13:45:05+01:00 voiced: Set 1 IP to 519b:7cc2:600::100:0:2400:0
INF 2009-09-04T13:45:05+01:00 voiced: reset port 1
INF 2009-09-04T13:45:05+01:00 sip: SipInstanceDestroy()
ERR 2009-09-04T13:45:05+01:00 sip: SipProcessMsgs(): NULL hcall
INF 2009-09-04T13:45:05+01:00 vrsip: port 0: voice on broadband 21
INF 2009-09-04T13:45:05+01:00 sip: SipInstanceSetLocalIP() - 519b7cc2, 81.***.***.*** [IP deleted]
INF 2009-09-04T13:45:05+01:00 sip: SipInstanceSetLocalPort() - Local Port #:5070
INF 2009-09-04T13:45:05+01:00 sip: SipInstanceSetRemoteIP() - sp2.btsip.bt.net
INF 2009-09-04T13:45:05+01:00 sip: SipInstanceSetRemotePort() - Remote Port:5060
INF 2009-09-04T13:45:05+01:00 sip: SipInstanceSetDomainName() - btsip.bt.com
INF 2009-09-04T13:45:05+01:00 sip: SipInstanceSetQos() - QOS:type 0, value 2
INF 2009-09-04T13:45:05+01:00 sip: SipInstanceSetQos() - QOS:type 2, value 46
INF 2009-09-04T13:45:05+01:00 sip: SipInstanceSetQos() - QOS:type 1, value 6
INF 2009-09-04T13:45:05+01:00 sip: SipInstanceSetQos() - QOS:type 3, value -1
INF 2009-09-04T13:45:05+01:00 sip: SipInstanceSetTransProt - inst uses UDP as default
INF 2009-09-04T13:45:05+01:00 sip: SipInstanceSetNtwkCallFeature() - 41814010 0
INF 2009-09-04T13:45:05+01:00 sip: SipInstanceStart() - local IP: 519b7cc2 81.***.***.*** [IP deleted]
INF 2009-09-04T13:45:05+01:00 sip: SipInstanceDestroy()
ERR 2009-09-04T13:45:05+01:00 sip: SipProcessMsgs(): NULL hcall
INF 2009-09-04T13:45:06+01:00 vrsip: port 1: voice on broadband 21
INF 2009-09-04T13:45:06+01:00 sip: SipInstanceSetLocalIP() - 519b7cc2, 81.***.***.*** [IP deleted]
INF 2009-09-04T13:45:06+01:00 sip: SipInstanceSetLocalPort() - Local Port #:5071
INF 2009-09-04T13:45:06+01:00 sip: SipInstanceSetRemoteIP() - sp2.btsip.bt.net
INF 2009-09-04T13:45:06+01:00 sip: SipInstanceSetRemotePort() - Remote Port:5060
INF 2009-09-04T13:45:06+01:00 sip: SipInstanceSetDomainName() - btsip.bt.com
INF 2009-09-04T13:45:06+01:00 sip: SipInstanceSetQos() - QOS:type 0, value 2
INF 2009-09-04T13:45:06+01:00 sip: SipInstanceSetQos() - QOS:type 2, value 46
INF 2009-09-04T13:45:06+01:00 sip: SipInstanceSetQos() - QOS:type 1, value 6
INF 2009-09-04T13:45:06+01:00 sip: SipInstanceSetQos() - QOS:type 3, value -1
INF 2009-09-04T13:45:06+01:00 sip: SipInstanceSetTransProt - inst uses UDP as default
INF 2009-09-04T13:45:06+01:00 sip: SipInstanceSetNtwkCallFeature() - 41820c10 0
INF 2009-09-04T13:45:06+01:00 sip: SipInstanceStart() - local IP: 519b7cc2 81.***.***.*** [IP deleted]
INF 2009-09-04T14:34:05+01:00 cwmd: retried session started, server: 'https://pbthdm.bt.motive.com/cwmpWeb/CPEMgt', event code(s): '4 VALUE CHANGE,1 BOOT'
WRN 2009-09-04T14:34:07+01:00 cwmd: authentication has already been tried once and we still don't get in
WRN 2009-09-04T14:34:07+01:00 cwmd: session failed...
INF 2009-09-04T14:34:07+01:00 cwmd: session will be retried in 2698276(ms)
INF 2009-09-04T15:19:35+01:00 cwmd: retried session started, server: 'https://pbthdm.bt.motive.com/cwmpWeb/CPEMgt', event code(s): '4 VALUE CHANGE,1 BOOT'
WRN 2009-09-04T15:19:38+01:00 cwmd: authentication has already been tried once and we still don't get in
WRN 2009-09-04T15:19:38+01:00 cwmd: session failed...
INF 2009-09-04T15:19:38+01:00 cwmd: session will be retried in 2510146(ms)
INF 2009-09-04T16:01:36+01:00 cwmd: retried session started, server: 'https://pbthdm.bt.motive.com/cwmpWeb/CPEMgt', event code(s): '4 VALUE CHANGE,1 BOOT'
WRN 2009-09-04T16:01:38+01:00 cwmd: authentication has already been tried once and we still don't get in
WRN 2009-09-04T16:01:38+01:00 cwmd: session failed...
INF 2009-09-04T16:01:38+01:00 cwmd: session will be retried in 2771509(ms)
INF 2009-09-04T16:21:36+01:00 lmd: device0: dsl0 has no current version set
WRN 2009-09-04T16:21:36+01:00 lmd: qos0: admin_gen: unable to lookup clfy netdev pvc0: No such file or directory
WRN 2009-09-04T16:21:37+01:00 lmd: Previous log entry repeated 15 times
INF 2009-09-04T16:21:37+01:00 lmd: device0: dsl0 has no current version set
WRN 2009-09-04T16:21:37+01:00 lmd: qos0: admin_gen: unable to lookup clfy netdev pvc0: No such file or directory
WRN 2009-09-04T16:21:38+01:00 lmd: Previous log entry repeated 15 times
WRN 2009-09-04T16:36:52+01:00 named: resp recvfrom 194.74.65.68 errno=49
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Perhaps it was one of the interference pulses that took the connection down.
>>>>G.DMT Annex A interleaved Rate:864/448 Max:864/516
If the router has been synced at that rate since this afternoon the profile has probably dropped to 750 kbps :(
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Yep, you are spot on, sad to say:
Test1 comprises of Best Effort Test: -provides background information.
Your DSL connection rate: 864 kbps(DOWN-STREAM), 448 kbps(UP-STREAM)
IP profile for your line is - 750 kbps
Actual IP throughput achieved during the test was - 689 kbps