Re: Nightly noise interference

[Jim H <jimh@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 11/17/2010 4:33 AM, brucehvn wrote:
> I have had X10 installed in my house for years.  Within the past
> couple weeks, I started noticing that at night, a lot of my X10 stuff
> wasn't working.  I've done some investigation with my ESM-1 meter and
> have found that one leg of the house is experiencing outrageous noise
> levels.  The meter shows a steady reading of over 50%.  The other leg
> is fine.  My front porch light is scheduled to come on around 1/2 hour
> after sunset and that seems to work most days, but it will never shut
> off because sometime after that this huge noise starts.  I have a
> coupler-repeater installed, but the noise is too great and it doesn't
> help.
>
> I don't think this is coming from my house.  Nothing much changes here
> between night and day except for a few lights, but I'm sure they
> aren't causing the problem.  I'm guessing it has to be a neighbor,
> probably close, right?
>
> What can I do about this?  I have a Panamax whole house surge
> suppressor which has not been installed yet.  Would that be able to
> block noise coming from outside, or do I need some other kind of whole
> house filter?

Don't be so sure that the problem isn't in your house. You said that the
last thing that works properly is the lights turning on. Lights can
cause electrical interference. LED, CFL, and other types of lights can
be the culprit. Try turning each one off, then see if it improves.

I would think that if it external to your home, it would appear on both
phases of the power line.

Set up the meter, and watch it to see when exactly the noise begins.
That may be a good clue to the problem.