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Author Topic: Pirate frequency QRM at my QTH: what could it be?  (Read 10678 times)

Offline John Poet

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Re: Pirate frequency QRM at my QTH: what could it be?
« Reply #15 on: October 28, 2015, 2228 UTC »
At 2224, sounded like they were playing with it-- keyed up slow and manually a couple times with long pauses, then it started beeping regular at 2226...  long pause and intermittent dashes.... started steady again at 2240 UTC.

Signal changed at 0045 to very long keydowns lasting about six seconds each... okay...

Maybe I should slap the antenna back on the car, and put the big "F.C.C." magnetic signs on it and go park in front of where I think their house is....  ;D  
« Last Edit: October 29, 2015, 0047 UTC by John Poet »
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Offline BDM

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Re: Pirate frequency QRM at my QTH: what could it be?
« Reply #16 on: October 29, 2015, 0202 UTC »
Quote from: John Poet on October 28, 2015, 2228 UTC
Maybe I should slap the antenna back on the car, and put the big "F.C.C." magnetic signs on it and go park in front of where I think their house is....  ;D  

LOL :)
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Offline Fred Smith

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Re: Pirate frequency QRM at my QTH: what could it be?
« Reply #17 on: October 29, 2015, 0215 UTC »
Pirates chasing pirates?
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Offline Kage

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Re: Pirate frequency QRM at my QTH: what could it be?
« Reply #18 on: October 29, 2015, 0257 UTC »
Aliens probably, though I have been playing with a VFO but doubt the piss weak 0.020 watt signal on 6925 in a metal box for testing made it your way unless you live 10' from me.
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Offline Pigmeat

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Re: Pirate frequency QRM at my QTH: what could it be?
« Reply #19 on: October 29, 2015, 1424 UTC »
Quote from: John Poet on October 28, 2015, 2228 UTC
At 2224, sounded like they were playing with it-- keyed up slow and manually a couple times with long pauses, then it started beeping regular at 2226...  long pause and intermittent dashes.... started steady again at 2240 UTC.

Signal changed at 0045 to very long keydowns lasting about six seconds each... okay...

Maybe I should slap the antenna back on the car, and put the big "F.C.C." magnetic signs on it and go park in front of where I think their house is....  ;D  

There is a guy down around Virginia Beach that claims the FCC are always driving by his house in Packard's with magnetic loops mounted on the car roofs. He blames it on some guy named Bob.

Anyone named Bob around your place?
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Offline ka1iic

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Re: Pirate frequency QRM at my QTH: what could it be?
« Reply #20 on: October 29, 2015, 1751 UTC »
"So exactly how far away could you hear signals coming from such devices?!  I would presume it would only be a few houses away from the source?"

If it is only via the 'air' a very little area will be covered by such devices in theory But...

If the device is in some way being coupled to the electrical house wiring... watch out! Because the house wiring becomes a very large antenna.  This situation becomes much worse (and the signal much stronger) if one of the 'runs' of house wiring is resonate to the devices operating frequency or any of its harmonics.

The big problem is the fact that many houses do not have their own distribution transformer, with multiple houses being connected to a single transformer.  This can raise all kinds of hell for a Ham or SWL in that your house wiring becomes a part of the antenna for the 'dirty' signal from the device. And the interfering signal is coupled (more or less) directly to your receiver.  Fun ehhh?

Question:  Have you checked for harmonics both below and above 6925 khz?  If there are none then it may well be a beacon, tracking device, intruder alarm, etc etc, ??  of some sort.

Who knows what kind of scat 'Doctor Poo' is creating these days <sigh>  Don't blame Canada, blame China et al and the very lose Part 15 testing of these cheap devices...

nuff said 4 now...
 
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73 Vince
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Offline redhat

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Re: Pirate frequency QRM at my QTH: what could it be?
« Reply #21 on: October 29, 2015, 1756 UTC »
Quote from: Fred Smith on October 29, 2015, 0215 UTC
Pirates chasing pirates?

The CB'er used to do the same back in the 80's...  If you pissed someone off, they'd put a nail in your coax.

+-RH
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Offline ChrisSmolinski

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Re: Pirate frequency QRM at my QTH: what could it be?
« Reply #22 on: October 29, 2015, 1800 UTC »
Quote from: ka1iic on October 29, 2015, 1751 UTC
Question:  Have you checked for harmonics both below and above 6925 khz?  If there are none then it may well be a beacon, tracking device, intruder alarm, etc etc, ??  of some sort.

That's a great suggestion. You observed the signal on 6926, Poet, check out 3463 or 2309, or even other subharmonics. It could be that 6926 was not the intended frequency and is just a harmonic.
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Re: Pirate frequency QRM at my QTH: what could it be?
« Reply #23 on: October 30, 2015, 0208 UTC »
Or worse. I witnessed at least one incident where a guy had left his radio keyed down on a popular channel for hours. A few CBers got pissed off enough that they tracked the signal to the guy's home, slung a grappling hook up into his antenna, and then drove off, trailing antenna, coax, radio, and other miscellaneous odds and ends from the radio room.

Quote from: redhat on October 29, 2015, 1756 UTC
Quote from: Fred Smith on October 29, 2015, 0215 UTC
Pirates chasing pirates?

The CB'er used to do the same back in the 80's...  If you pissed someone off, they'd put a nail in your coax.

+-RH
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Offline John Poet

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Re: Pirate frequency QRM at my QTH: what could it be?
« Reply #24 on: October 30, 2015, 0247 UTC »
Quote from: ChrisSmolinski on October 29, 2015, 1800 UTC
Quote from: ka1iic on October 29, 2015, 1751 UTC
Question:  Have you checked for harmonics both below and above 6925 khz?  If there are none then it may well be a beacon, tracking device, intruder alarm, etc etc, ??  of some sort.

That's a great suggestion. You observed the signal on 6926, Poet, check out 3463 or 2309, or even other subharmonics. It could be that 6926 was not the intended frequency and is just a harmonic.

Nope, those frequencies were clean when it came on earlier.

Now it's off way early.  Hope it burned up :D

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Offline Pigmeat

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Re: Pirate frequency QRM at my QTH: what could it be?
« Reply #25 on: October 30, 2015, 0454 UTC »
Quote from: redhat on October 29, 2015, 1756 UTC
Quote from: Fred Smith on October 29, 2015, 0215 UTC
Pirates chasing pirates?

The CB'er used to do the same back in the 80's...  If you pissed someone off, they'd put a nail in your coax.

+-RH

I had an Uncle who got his coax pinned by a few busybody CB'er's back around '71. He was using a Heathkit ham tx to do the forbidden, talk skip, plus he was using a HANDLE!

I'm surprised he wasn't found hanged from his tower.

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Offline ka1iic

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Re: Pirate frequency QRM at my QTH: what could it be?
« Reply #26 on: October 30, 2015, 1724 UTC »
OK... not a harmonic....

Mixing product?  possibly but not likely... but it can happen...

Do you live near an airport? naaa... did you mention a more erratic keying?  then that would make it less likely, I've seen those beacons go nutz but not very often.

Yep, it looks like you need to do a bit of investigative DFing to locate the source and hope it is a neighbour you can at least talk to rationally... many don't fit into this group of 'rationality' because they believe it couldn't possibly be their 'toy' causing the problem... such 'logic' tells them to believe that it is your radio that is messed up. <sigh>

Let me think about this some more...



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73 Vince
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"If you can't be anything, you can at least be annoying"

Troy, Ohio. 20m Vertical & low long wire E/W, Yaesu FT-187ND, SDRplay 2, Ratt Shack 2 meter rig, and other little bits of electronics I'm not talking about, homebrewed and otherwise... so there bleech!

Offline John Poet

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Re: Pirate frequency QRM at my QTH: what could it be?
« Reply #27 on: October 30, 2015, 1850 UTC »
It never did come back on last night after going off early...
Maybe they changed their frequency, or it burned out.  Either one would be good with me :D

Once or twice I've heard weird keying on it.  On start-up the other day, it sounded like it was being manually keyed, very slowly, before finally going into regular tones.  Sometimes the speed changes.  Once it went kind of nuts with very fast irregular keying, but not like normal CW-- almost like some kid was playing with it.

From my DFing, I don't have much doubt about where the source has to be, approximately: a section one street over.  It gets weaker from there in all directions.

Hopefully I'm going to get lucky here, and not have to deal with it.


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John Poet
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Offline ka1iic

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Re: Pirate frequency QRM at my QTH: what could it be?
« Reply #28 on: October 30, 2015, 1855 UTC »
I'm with you... let it just go away... please! Who needs this extra botheration any how?
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73 Vince
KA1IIC

"If you can't be anything, you can at least be annoying"

Troy, Ohio. 20m Vertical & low long wire E/W, Yaesu FT-187ND, SDRplay 2, Ratt Shack 2 meter rig, and other little bits of electronics I'm not talking about, homebrewed and otherwise... so there bleech!

Offline BDM

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Re: Pirate frequency QRM at my QTH: what could it be?
« Reply #29 on: October 30, 2015, 2248 UTC »
+2
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Radios -- Perseus SDR // SDRPlay RSPdx-R2 // Icom IC-7300 // // Yaesu FT-991A // Tecsun PL-990x // Realistic DX-440 // Panasonic RF-5000A --Antennas-- Pixel Pro 1B loop - 82' fan-dipole at 40' - tuned MW/BCB 40" loop and 100' receive only dipole
-Brian--North of Detroit--MI-
1710/KHz the MW Pirate Clear Channel (not so much anymore "sigh")
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