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W5VIN

Joined: Sat, Apr 4th 1998, 00:00 Roles: N/A Moderates: N/A

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Uverse RFI Oct 4th 2013, 23:04 16 20,732 on 12/4/18

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Uverse RFI W5VIN on 18/12/13
ATT Uverse came out and cleaned up the 4 interconnect enclosures closest to our home. They also added more grounding bonds On my recommendation they added some brass screen wire to the inside of the cover. Those enclosures are not RFI proofed. Before this work the enclosure had a strong signal on my Bendix 555 Marine DF unit After the mods I had to advance it's RF gain to full in order to hear it at 20 feet distance. I still have Comcast leakage from the next door neighbor. When the modem starts communicating it wipes out 18 and 21 Mhz. Tomorrow a field service tech is supposed to come out....If I didn't get lied to.
Unfortunately until the FCC got involved ATT Uverse was the same way. It took some time even after the FCC kept calling.
Comcast's technician said he knew exactly what the problem was.
Yesterday evening before the neighbor got on Comcast my S meter was on zero for the first time in a year.
Charlie W5VIN
Uverse RFI W5VIN on 16/10/13
I capacitor coupled my spectrum analyzer to the service drop inside the POTS enclosure. Somehow I created a band pass filter that passed from 3.75 Mhz to 4.8 Mhz.Doing this made my dipole signal to have the same pass band. That indicates the service drop is radiating a lot of RF. Probably every service drop is if they are unshielded, not grounded and near my QTH.. I wish to add this interference was in full swing long before I got Uverse internet. I was already off the air several months ago.
I just took a test lead and wrapped several turns around the service drop and got some inductive coupling. The signal there looks exactly as my dipole receives. It's time to quit chasing my tail and file a formal complaint with the FCC. It will be worded to the effect that no radiator shall be allowed to generate harmful interference to any other licensee, in my case a part 97 licensee. and primary user of the frequencies in question This will cause a complaint number to be generated and assigned for clearance.This also gets me out of the loop as the interfering party will be dealing with the FCC instead of me. After being told by one Uverse employee they will not rectify the problem and another that they have this system all over Houston and I'm the first ham to complain.I asked for a Uverse engineer to come over and instead received a robotic call informing me the problem had been resolved. Then the line went dead. it's time for someone else to collect official data on RF levels in the neighborhood. 73
Charlie
The Uverse people don't even own spectrum analyzers or tunable RF field strength meters.much less know how to use the equipment. They just run wires from pole to house and all is well in the RF spectrum...
Uverse RFI W5VIN on 14/10/13
Marvin: Today I completely disconnected the AT&T service drop. The interference may have dropped by 5 dbm. I went back to the POTS box and removed all phone lines except the Cat 5 modem cable. The interference increased to within a couple of dbm of the level of having all lines connected. The signal still looks the same. I took quite a few video clips at different spectrum widths and filter widths. The signal dropping by so small an amount after removal of all phone lines except the Cat 5 a large area around our home will have to be cleaned up. Cat 5 is NOT shielded cable and will radiate RF. It's twist only allows a faster data transfer rate. If this system sends out packet clusters and then looks at return loss percentage this tells me when first set up in the neighborhood some power level is set initially and after this if data loss occurs the power is turned up. There is no data available online about the system and relatively few comments pro or con.
The data collected today shows the different spectrum analyzer settings and is video of an open input or hooked up to the dipole antenna.
I'm tired of this CYA and circle the wagons phone company and at this time am waiting on the federal government shutdown to end.so I can turn this over to the local FCC spectrum enforcement engineer.
When I was dealing with the AT&T technicians the only name I got was the techs first name and phone number. When I asked for his supervisors name and number at first he claimed to not know. After 14 years he didn't know his supervisors name. He finally coughed up that name and number.This was the tech that said my spectrum analyzer was displaying a Uverse signal.He probably suspected I wasn't going away quietly Later when I called his supervisor he would not answer the phone. I waited a few minutes and called back using a cell phone and the man answered.
Like someone once said it ain't over till the fat lady sings.Who knows she may also be paroled by our federal government. 73
Charlie W5VIN .
Uverse RFI W5VIN on 13/10/13
I have been searching for a 4 to 1 balanced to unbalanced instrument balun but will probably just use a T pad resistive attenuator and hook this to my service drop at the pots box and use the spectrum analyzer to measure signal levels and signal signature at the source. Yes I do believe my QRM is AT&T Uverse for at least 2 reasons. This garbage service started perhaps 6 months to a year ago. I had Center Point Energy out numerous times and they had the power lines cleaned for a 20 block area around me. The other reason is the second ATT t-ech looked at my spectrum analyzer and confirmed the signal was theirs but they weren't going to do anything about it.Tomorrow I may do some measurements at the service drop.
I believe I figured out on my own how this system operates. Every 90 or so Khz the RF energy bumps are sending and receiving packet clusters. If a certain percentage are dropped the power output is increased and then lowered as the packet cluster loss becomes less. These clumps are constantly moving at a slow rate over 12 to 20 Khz area but go up and down in frequency.This abomination does not operate in the MDS RF levels but occupies everything from -128 dbm to at least -70 dbm power levels as measured at 50 ohms. That's a huge chunk of operating level. The constantly changing power level is causing my receiver AGC to pump which effects amateur conversation even if the garbage is non detected by my form of demodulation. Tomorrow I will do the nice thing and perform those tests at the POTS box so there are no more questions. This RFI is not the Martians trying to communicate with me. If I receive the signal in our home especially when near phone lines and from 2 separate dipoles antenna and it started when Uverse was being installed in our neighborhood what else can it be..I could add the FCC spectrum management engineer was interested in my QRM issue after I told him I only checked signal levels at my dipole. I sent him the same photo's I had sent to Mike Gruber. Hopefully he will have his teeth sharpened after a drive through my neighborhood. After reading some of that material on the AT&T RFI forum I was convinced Uverse is in trouble. The author never admits one error AT&T committed. The entire article is ATT
pontificating and blaming interference on amateur radio operators.
If one was to believe their spiel we would all be transmitting into dummy loads. Charlie W5VIN
Uverse RFI W5VIN on 13/10/13
I have 4 very nice video clips on Utube showing the effects of Uverse on communications through out the 75 and 80 meter amateur radio band. I am going to be adding some more video clips of the 160.and 40 meter amateur band also. This garbage about how we should be kind and share our frequencies with Uverse is just that. So it's wonderful technology and the amateur high power transmitter causes it havoc. I could care less about Uverse technology as they are leaking their RF into the ether in my neighborhood at levels so high I'm off the air except for very close contacts. A station has to an S9+ to be armchair copy. Unfortunately most of my net members reside f85 to 240 miles away and I am unable to copy these at 0800 CST. I also belong to another 75 meter net which meets at 1830 CST and can't copy 50 percent of the stations.
.I'm biding my time and waiting for the FCC spectrum Management engineer to get back to me after he is allowed to return to work. Any entity that places an RF signal on a twisted pair phone line is doing nothing but causing interference for primary users of these frequencies. I find it hard believing this was allowed to fly under the radar. Once that Genie's bottle is opened it's hard to get it back in.
It's like having an armored fox with a Klingon cloaking device watching the chicken coop.
Martin, you must be the Uverse engineer Mike Gruber of ARRL headquarters said could help me with my Uverse QRM problem..
Telling me how Uverse operates is not going to solve a thing. They are invading amateur radio spectrum ever since their signals appeared on our receivers. Charlie W5VIN..

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