Long-term investigation of unstable input, affected by electrical and network conditions

[TN_fun]

Alright guys. I’ve seen many of you trying really expensive stuff like power stations and UPS units. But what about a simple alternative called an anti-static wrist strap? It’s dirt cheap.You can clip it directly to your PC case (just find a spot with good bare metal contact, no paint) or straight to the grounding pin of your surge protector or extension cord (be careful to only touch the ground contact!). Obviously, you need to have properly grounded wall outlets for this to work.But even if your outlets aren't grounded, you should still try it and connect it to your PC case. This will at least equalize the potential between your body and the computer.I’ve mentioned this before, but nobody seems to be giving it a shot.

[fa1kk]

Alright guys. I’ve seen many of you trying really expensive stuff like power stations and UPS units. But what about a simple alternative called an anti-static wrist strap? It’s dirt cheap.You can clip it directly to your PC case (just find a spot with good bare metal contact, no paint) or straight to the grounding pin of your surge protector or extension cord (be careful to only touch the ground contact!). Obviously, you need to have properly grounded wall outlets for this to work.But even if your outlets aren't grounded, you should still try it and connect it to your PC case. This will at least equalize the potential between your body and the computer.I’ve mentioned this before, but nobody seems to be giving it a shot.

I actually tested this a couple of years ago. After installing a dedicated ground rod, one of the first things I tried was grounding myself with an anti-static wrist strap. I also connected the PC case and monitor together with a separate ground wire and experimented with different grounding arrangements, power cables, cable routing, and many other variations. None of those changes made a slight change. Give it a shot if you want to test something. It just wasn't the solution in my case.

[Slender]

Alright guys. I’ve seen many of you trying really expensive stuff like power stations and UPS units. But what about a simple alternative called an anti-static wrist strap? It’s dirt cheap.You can clip it directly to your PC case (just find a spot with good bare metal contact, no paint) or straight to the grounding pin of your surge protector or extension cord (be careful to only touch the ground contact!). Obviously, you need to have properly grounded wall outlets for this to work.But even if your outlets aren't grounded, you should still try it and connect it to your PC case. This will at least equalize the potential between your body and the computer.I’ve mentioned this before, but nobody seems to be giving it a shot.

never do that

[unexpected8]

Fa1kk
Did you measure the grounding resistance? If so, what was it? I connected two copper rods but didn't measure the resistance. I have seen some improvement, but not the desired improvement

[ablemor]

tn fun:
I tried it, but it didn't do anything.

[ablemor]

Alright guys. I’ve seen many of you trying really expensive stuff like power stations and UPS units. But what about a simple alternative called an anti-static wrist strap? It’s dirt cheap.You can clip it directly to your PC case (just find a spot with good bare metal contact, no paint) or straight to the grounding pin of your surge protector or extension cord (be careful to only touch the ground contact!). Obviously, you need to have properly grounded wall outlets for this to work.But even if your outlets aren't grounded, you should still try it and connect it to your PC case. This will at least equalize the potential between your body and the computer.I’ve mentioned this before, but nobody seems to be giving it a shot.

I tried it, but it didn't do anything.

[fa1kk]

Fa1kk
Did you measure the grounding resistance? If so, what was it? I connected two copper rods but didn't measure the resistance. I have seen some improvement, but not the desired improvement

I didn't measure the grounding resistance of my circuit. Grounding itself made such a small difference that if I did a blind test, I probably wouldn't be able to tell whether it was connected or not. The only place where I notice a slight improvement is in Kovaak's, but even there the difference is very small.

I started with a single 4.5 m rod, then expanded it to one 10 m rod plus six additional 2 m rods connected with a galvanized buried busbar, forming a closed loop about 14 m in circumference. I also increased the grounding conductor from 2.5 mm² to 6.5 mm². None of those grounding changes made any meaningful difference.
I changed almost every parameter of my grounding system over the last two years: depth, number of rods, total area, and conductor size, and none of those changes made any meaningful difference.

TL;DR 4.5 m rod gave the same result as whole rebuild grounding circuit. And I'm not sure that measuring it will make any difference.

[fa1kk]

A good investigation, is it the energy company with a Rode Schwarz spectrum analyzer? Or the GIE?
Try to take the Am receiver to walk along the 0.4 kv line, perhaps somewhere micro-sparking, although in theory the analyzer would have caught, but not always.
And another option is to look for an electric motor, or a pump, most often they are such strong interference in the network, thyristors, or a variable frequency drive.

Recently I started investigating the electrical network by myself using an AM receiver. I used a battery-powered portable radio (Colon RX-8866, AM/FM/SW1-6), mainly tuned to 500 kHz AM, as a simple interference detector.

When the entire area lost power, I repeated exactly the same measurements around my house.

1)Almost all of the previously detectable noise disappeared.
2) My house wiring became silent.
3) Wall outlets became silent.
4) Utility poles that normally produced noticeable AM noise became much quieter (almost no noise).
All of the above was repeated at least a couple of times.

However, even with the whole area de-energized, the underground cable coming from the transformer still produced strong noise when the radio was brought very close to it.

The transformer's grounded neutral (PEN) also continued to produce detectable noise at close range, even though the transformer was completely shut down.

When I powered my PC from a portable power station (with no utility power available), the AM radio immediately detected noise around the power cable of the station itself, which makes me think of two things:

1)Almost all portable power stations and UPSs are not able to provide crystal-clear power quality as advertised, including expensive ones. This made me think that portable power stations also generate noise, which could explain why testing them never changed the main symptom.

2) There might still be significant RF noise present even after the entire area is de-energized. But if that's true, why didn't the UCRF detect anything?

Finally, there is one more observation.
Whenever the utility company performs work somewhere on the electrical network, even if it is not on my own feeder, the behavior of my PC can change dramatically for several hours.

The only possible explanation I could think of is that all 10 kV transformers connected to the same 35 kV network are electrically linked. If one of them generates radio-frequency interference, it could potentially couple onto other lines and propagate through the distribution network.

Another possibility is poor electrical connections or invisible sparking somewhere on the network.

After walking roughly 300 meters around my house, I couldn't find one obvious, strong source. I only found a couple of power poles (not even fed by my transformer) that produced noticeably more AM noise than any of the poles on my own line. When the power was off, they also became silent.

I would really appreciate any ideas about the investigation.

[MakaTyson]

In the next few days, a specialist from my city’s Department of Sanitary and Epidemiological Control will come to my apartment to measure electromagnetic fields across the full frequency range, from 5 Hz up to 300 GHz. I’ll post an update here once I receive the results.