RE: [misterhouse-users] Secondary Mr House

[Ron S. <rl...@at...>]

Ryan,

If your problem comes and goes in such long time frames, it would seem to be
something different than a typical "problem device" in your house.  Two
things come to mind:  An intermittent failing device and Dirty power.  I
have seen both.

In one case a doorbell transformer in the adjacent apartment began failing
and developed an internal arc.  It first "took out" the X-10 stuff and then
in its more advanced phase began emitting enough RF to destroy radio and TV
reception.  It would be fine at in the day when things were hot and dry, but
then at night with coolness and humidity the internal arcing would begin (we
figured that out after solving the problem).  The RF was its downfall.  I
could track that with a cheap AM radio.  Once the transformer was replaced,
the problem was gone.  So watch for odd correlation's like temperature, time
of day, calendar cycles, etc.

In the power case, there was an industrial plant that was sometimes being
fed from a large branch feeder.  Depending on whether the neighborhood was
switched to that feeder or a different one (for load balancing) the power
would be sometimes clean, and sometimes really noisy.  I did not hear what
it did to X-10 stuff, but it wreaked havoc with the PC's back then.

I have several devices that even plugging through the X-10 15amp filters
don't stop.  One decorative lamp (one of those with neat blue arcs inside)
will kill all my X-10 even with filters, couplers, repeaters, and
amplifiers.  Some day I am going to put it on the bench and do a spectrum
analysis of it just to see what the heck makes it such an effective X-10
jammer.  If your neighbor bought one of these at the same cute store in the
mall that I did, and it is as nasty as mine is, your X-10 would be toast.
BTW, it also emits lots of RF too.

So my suggestion, get a cheap AM radio and begin checking things when the
problem is gone and then when it comes back.  A radio with a loopstick
antenna (not a whip) is the best kind because the loopstick has good
directionality and you can locate the direction if the noise is not too
loud.

Intermittent problems are tough -- hang in there.

Good luck,
Ron

> -----Original Message-----
>  Sometimes the problem will last a week and then just
> go away. and then it'll work just fine for weeks
> without any intervention on anyone's part
> whatsoever...
>
> -a highly frustrated Ryan.