atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums General General Telephone & Systems Information Extreme radio noise

Here's a new one for me that I'm not sure where to post- I have a new customer who is moving into an office way out on a pier that has a huge radio antennae right next door that broadcasts a Vietnamese radio station.
I noticed this as I was toning the existing cat 3 cable to install the jacks. The signal is so strong, the station can be heard loudly over the probe speaker on all cables and pairs (unfortunately this also goes through a 25 pr feeder cable to next floor, as well).

3 lines (2 S/L and Fax) will be installed tomorrow by telco. I am anticipating a noise problem (uh-yeah) and would like to be prepared. Has anyone has encountered a situation like this?
I have several questions:
Is there any solution for this besides cabling (i.e., aluminum siding, foil on walls)?
Can Telco help with high capacitance lines or something similar?
Will increasing cat3 to cat 5 or 6 wiring help, or will it require shielded homeruns?
Even with the shielded HR, would the line cords or telephones still allow the noise?
If customer is leasing is the leaser financially responsible for this or might the landlord be?

Thanks in advance.

Ground all unused wire, You are facing a very difficult task as far as bci.

You may never get the rf out.

You might find that there is no problem at all. The probe will pick up a bunch of stuff that a wired phone on a balanced circuit won't. Or course, the only way to tell is start installing the phones. Remember that Sandman has a lot of filters and has a "tech bulletin" on troubleshooting RFI

Bring in standard analog phone to the mpoe . Connect it with an extra long length of cable , walk around the building and see if you pick up radio or if it gets louder as you enter certain areas . Ask other people on the pier if the have a radio interference problem . You may have to run shielded cable and use filters . This test should tell you .

Of course Tommy's right- I won't REALLY know if there's a problem until after the line is installed and the phones plugged in and tested.
I did ask around the building, after hearing the noise on my induction probe, and a guy in the farthest corner away from the antennae said he had an extreme noise problem on hos phone, until telco "fixed it by giving me a new pair of something.." I took this to mean a new TR pair from the B box feeding the MPOE. However, this made me more concerned as I do want the customer to have good service, and I DO want to get paid.

If you are using a digital system you shouldn't have too much of a problem. RFI elimination on the POTS line is the responsibility of the telco. At it is here.

Jim:

Have you attached to other lines in the building to see if they are having this issue?

Other lines do have this issue, but only spoke to one user, whose noise was corrected (by getting a balanced pair, I think). There is no system attached to these 3 lines.
Thanks for the help!

Have had similar experiences within my office that is located close to a radio tower. In most (not all) cases, ferrite beads did the job. You might need to use them on your feed cable and your line cords. Mike Sandman can fix you up with what you need.

I had previously tried grounding, then went to a shielded cat5 home run and it didn't make a bit of difference. Out of 100 phones, I still have RFI on a few. Good luck to you.

Well, the info from this forum saved me once again!
Telco put an RF filter on the lines, which made the lines sound clean at the MPOE. But downstairs in the customers office all lines were noisy. I grounded (to a known good ground) all spare pairs, and the lines became almost totally quiet. Customer happy. I'm happy.
Thanks folks!