Re: Nightly noise interference

["Robert Green" <robert_green1963@xxxxxxxxx>]

"brucehvn" <unet@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:e8ba265a-edd4-4673-8608-811097403f8f@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> 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?

I had a fluorescent worklight that showed absolutely no noise when I tested
it when I first installed it, but as the bulbs aged it began to "sing" loud
enough at 120KHz  to drown out all X-10 traffic on that circuit.  You need
to measure the noise at several points to determine the source.  It will be
greater as you approach the source.  If the noise level is loudest near the
circuit panel, it means either your repeater has failed (likely) or that the
noise is coming from outside (less likely).  The ESM-1 is not the tool for
this, unfortunately, because it's got a bar graph readout.  Devices like
Jeff Volp's XTBM or the Monterey PSA are much better suited to noise hunting
because they provide a digital readout of the noise making it easy to trace
along a known circuit, outlet by outlet, to locate the noise source.  Since
your noise is restricted to one side, I am betting on a bad repeater.  Power
it down and then measure.

--
Bobby G.