sundance-communications.com/forum Forums Wiring - Telecom Carriers - Trunks & Services Telecom Service & Providers Rural Hum Issues

Interesting... I contacted SNC and they said it sounds like the SNIX is over saturated with 30+ volts.

I measure 14 on my Ring-to-Ground. Tip-to-Ground is measuring something like 100+volts, but I've been told by Frontier that this is just a bad meter reading (e.g. meter picking up DC voltage while in AC mode).

Does that sound bogus? Based on the results of the SNC, I'm beginning to question that... but how can I test for sure?

Tonight I got ahold of a Tenma and measured both sides of the line. Both measure in at 12volts (guess you really can't trust those cheap little RatShack meters). So I've got 12 volts on the line on both sides.

I have one other piece of information that I don't know if it means anything useful. The Tenma told me that I had measured 30khz on the ring-to-ground and 0khz on the tip-to-ground... but I don't know if that is of any relevance.

Just measured again and got 25khz on ring-to-ground and 48khz on tip-to-ground.

We're still working on this issue. I've tried the INT, the SNIX, the super SNIX, all to no avail. I can drain up to 15 volts of AC off the line and the hum is still there!

One thing I was trying to establish was how much resistance/continuity there is between the phone line and the ground (right now I'm connected to the power company's multi-grounded neutral). I can not get any reading other than OL.

I'm attaching my meter in-line between my phone ground wire and the grounding rod, when I get the OL reading. Am I taking this reading incorrectly, or is my neutral ground really this bad?

Under that condition, any voltage on the line is going to do one of several things to your meter. All useless-to-destructive. OL is overload=useless. Other possibilities are blown meter fuse and/or blown meter circuitry=destructive. FIRST measure the AC and DC voltages. Since you have them, in significant amounts, you are done!

Probably time to see my post on May 19 about becoming the "Subsciber Crusader".

The telephone line hum saga continues.... Frontier has claimed the issue was a reversed neutral/main on the power lines.... seemed logical.

However, this morning the power was out for most of our road, including well beyond the area they claims the induction was happening at.

Guess what? Hum continued!

Is it possible this could be a bad line card at the CO affecting 3 or 4 people all on that card... and we just happen to be in the same geographical area?

If you still had hum with an extended power outage you either have a grounded pair or an imbalanced pair, period. Since you'd think they've had looked repeatedly for any physical faults I'd go with imbalance.

Okay, you'll never get it cured by the utility until they come out, cut your pair (I assume you are a private line without reading three pages)so it doesn't go beyond your ped/pole, and if it still hums, they need to check the sheath bond and ground between you and the C O. There are telecom specific testers for just that. It is in their ball park and if you want this fixed, teach them how to play hard ball with your state BPU ( or what ever they are called). They ( your utility) are just playing you.

'Nuff said.

Well we now had a scheduled outage of power that took out a very large area, and the hum continued during that period of time.

And now a new twist... any more thoughts?
Telco has now re-run new cable from our home to about 2 miles down the road where the cable goes underground -- and the hum continues for us (and other houses past us).

But, the person who is on the line immediately after the wire comes up from underground has no hum on their line!

As has been said REPEATEDLY, it's time to get the Corporation Comission, Board of Public Utilities, or whomever is the appropriate governmental body in PA, HEAVILY involved! John C.