Rules and Guidelines
Want to participate in the discussions? Please read our Community Rules and Guidelines. Need some help? Visit Support and Answers.

  • Replies 5 replies
  • Subscribers 36 subscribers
  • Views 95 views
  • Users 0 members are here
Options
You may also be interested in

Even the DNO get it wrong sometimes.

Kelly Marie Angel

Just recently there's been a lot of clicks and buzzes on my mediumwave listening set up  I tried to trace the cause  checking my station earth an RF earth not mains my areal and all the mains connection but all seemed OK. Anyhow after a few days I found the DNO had dug a hole in the next street and replaced a straight through  joint. I was hoping it had cured the noises but sadly not. About a week later they dug another hole replaced 3 joints in a space of only 50 feet 2 straight through joint and 1 splitter joint I think that's the right name for it. Finally the noise was cured but do the DNO  really look for noise or are they detecting something else like heat or vibration??

  • Medium wave (MW) listening - that takes me back to the days of 'Short Wave Magazine' and listening to distant broadcast stations late into the evening!

    As you are probably aware, stations are fast disappearing from the MW broadcast band in the UK, as a complete shut-down is planned by 2027. 

    Tuning across the MW broadcast band here just now, the only stations to be heard were:

    • BBC Radio 5 Live (693 kHz // 909 kHz)
    • BBC Radio Scotland (810 kHz)
    • Talksport (1053 kHz // 1089 kHz)
    • Manx Radio (1368 kHz)

    Also heard were two unidentified stations on 756 kHz and 1296 kHz, both very weak.

    - Ross

  • in reply to Ross Currie
    Ross Currie said:
    listening to distant broadcast stations late into the evening!

    e.g Radio Caroline. :-)

    I was thinking only a couple of days ago (why?) of a 2-transistor radio (wireless receiving set). It is all streamed nowadays, save perhaps for the World Service, which reaches even where the local authorities would rather it did not.

  • DNO  really look for noise or are they detecting something else like heat or vibration??

    Some years ago we had niggling fault with the supply at work ... the DNO had several attempts to locate the fault as it gradually got worse and in the end they resorted to repeatedly replacing the substation fuse while their colleagues simply walked around listening for where the bang was loudest - and that's where they dug. Crude, but seemed effective! At a similar time we'd started using TDRs to locate faults on data network cables, so fancier technology certainly existed, but the DNO didn't seem to use them.

    In your case it might just be they kept digging up likely joints until downstream customer stopped complaining of flickering lights etc...

       - Andy.

  • in reply to Chris Pearson

    Not quite as far back as Radio Caroline!

    I'm only going back as far as the 1990s here, when I could also be found doing such esoteric things as listening for distant marine and aeronautical non-directional beacons (NDB) just below the MW broadcast band! Slight smile

    Similar to MW broadcasting, NDBs are now obsolescent. All the marine NDBs around the UK and Ireland were shut down by the early 2000s and whilst aeronautical NDBs are still in use, they are much reduced in number.

    I should really go now, before I start reminiscing about hyperbolic navigation systems at 100 kHz and below! :)

    - Ross

  • I still enjoy tuning around although this time of year it doesn't get dark till relatively late so don't get much DXing done, that said I can just hear radio Caroline  on  648 Khz  and of course radio 5  radio Wales  radio Scotland  at nite. Minx radio on 1386 is about the only music station still on mediumwave darker niteswill bring the Hungarian and Rumanian stations  so not a complete dead lose yet. I could go on but I won't unless someone asks for info. I think AJ Jewsbury is right they probably replaced bits until the fault went. I think the faulty feeder come off the same transformer as my house but it's a different cable 

Community Rules & Guidelines