P228 Tracking Interference in the Home

P228

Tracking Interference in the Home

An Amateur Radio operator goes into his ‘shack’ turns on their radio and all that’s heard is noise. It is strong. As long as the noise is present, the radio is effectively useless. The question becomes: What can you do about it?

The website https://qrm.guru/ describes a process that will help identify a noise source. The site is quite comprehensive and has a knowledge base search feature that allows visitors to find testimonials and solutions by entering key words.

Like all things technical in nature, interference tracking is a skill set that gets better with practise.

The best place to start is with this brief video clip, which shows some examples of what radio interference noise in the home looks like.

Where possible arrange for your radio to temporarily operate from 12V battery power, listen to the noise on your radio, then systematically turn off different 240V circuit around your house, including things like spa heaters, LED lights, solar inverters and air conditioners. If the noise stops, then this is a good thing. It means that the noise source is within the boundary of your home and you can do something about it. If the noise continues, then it’s back to the investigation process to see where it is coming from.