VK Logger Ham Radio Forum Archive

Neighbours have decided they need an electric fence for some reason (to keep me out?) and it is causing interference to my hf rig (S9) they are not very friendly people and not approachable.
So except for cutting the fence into 5GHz antennas is there anything I can do to reduce the noise level? The fence is about 20 meters from my G5RV.
Yes I know I can go to ACMA but that will be a last resort

Adrian

How about, when they're not home, a GOOD earth peg and a wire you can throw over it to short it out?

Might even work when they ARE home if you use a light-duty wire...

Failing that, any other neighbours suffering interference on broadcast radio or TV?

At the old farm I ran 2 heavy duty electric fence energisers and normally never had a problem with my HF radio. The only time I had a problem with noise was when I had a poor earth... like the earth wire coming off the stake. That is most likely the cause of your problem. It can also be caused by the fence arcing out somewhere... if you can inspect the fence from your side it might be worth taking a walk as it may be an easy fix...

Cheers

Richard
VK2AAH

The fence runs 90 degrees to my back fence and is attached to the boundary fence with plastic insulators I can only see about 30 feet of the electric clearly and looks to be ok
BUT
I have a tick tick interference at approx 2 second intervals the energiser and earth stake is about 100 meters away

Adrian

A lazy mans approach was to connect the electric fence earth to the mains driven earth instead of driving a separate earth electrode this can cause all sorts of mayhem especially if its a MEN system

Turn on your Noise Blanker.
I have electric fence interference on my receiving array, as that is the closest antenna to the boundary fence which is electrified. The noise blanker is very effective in eliminating the impulse type noise.
73,
Luke VK3HJ

Interference drops to S6 from S9 with noise blanked
Adrian

Hi Adrian,

VK4KL wrote:Interference drops to S6 from S9 with noise blanked
Adrian

We have horses here and at times the electric fence is a must have, for you this will be hard if they (the owners) are not approachable as there are a few different spike / lightning filters you can put in the feed from the energiser. I have one (filter) in our system where it has a long run around the boundary and it does a good job of noise suppression, not perfect mind you but a lot better than it was.

Poor fence design is a big contributor to the tick tick, along with what others have already mentioned about insulators. Using the noise blanker is fine until you have a close / loud signal on HF then you can get un pleasant distortion in the Rx.

no simple answer I am afraid, if you can hear an audible tick tick out near the fence then there is a path to earth and that's not good, ask them to fix it as its a fire risk in summer (not much help in winter I guess).

To locate the problem, steal a small AM MF radio from a friend and use it to locate the strongest noise point.

good luck,
Peter, vk5pj

The tick tick may be coming from grass touching the live wire or one or more of the plastic insulators may have cracks in them - an electric fence meter will soon find the short or so as suggested the earth points should be checked - have a talk to them and tell them you are picking up a possible short in their line - you will need to talk to them before going to the ACMA any way

John

Aren't they supposed to be a closed loop?
Google "electric fence interference". There are some good links there. ACMA article as well.

Nev

Not sure how long the electric fence will stay up now
Neighbours 5 year old just rode his peewee 50 straight through the fence 2 strands of 8 gauge a 1 energised wire. Fortunately the 2 stands let go without too much injury to the kid but the bike still travelled about 50 meters chasing the horse and spooking him

Adrian

Shades of schadenfreude . . .

VK4KL wrote:Neighbours have decided they need an electric fence for some reason (to keep me out?) and it is causing interference to my hf rig (S9) they are not very friendly people and not approachable.
So except for cutting the fence into 5GHz antennas is there anything I can do to reduce the noise level? The fence is about 20 meters from my G5RV.
Yes I know I can go to ACMA but that will be a last resort

Adrian

Really good blanker



http://www.arrl.org/files/file/Technolo ... cedure.pdf


I have a 5KM electric fence called a blackbird two wire around 5 hectare site about 5000 metres of wire and gates
At the gates they have electric switches
And its solar powered 24/7

I use an FT2000 and FT3000 and have set the blankers to take out the splats trouble is its dual circuit so splats go in and out of sync

Good luck you cant stop an electric spark unless you live in USA and have the FCC to enforce the rules like they did with the fluoro light guy..
ACMA cant and wont do anything

You could try the manaufacturer my qrm comes from a blackbird variety

You should only get bad interference if there is a spark or a bad leak such as a piece of grass or a weed etc. Get a portable radio and go along the whole length of the wire, you might find a noisy insulator. The noise blankers on most of the modern day rigs seem to cope fairly well with this type of interference.

Good luck.

David