SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
News from the BBC of a SHINE (single high-level impulse noise)[*] that interfered with a Welsh village's internet connection on a daily basis.
The mystery of why an entire village lost its broadband every morning at 7am was solved when engineers discovered an old television was to blame.
[...] After 18 months engineers began an investigation after a cable replacement programme failed to fix the issue.
[...] Openreach engineers were baffled by the continuous problem and it wasn't until they used a monitoring device that they found the fault.
The householder would switch their TV set on at 7am every morning[sic] - and electrical interference emitted by their second-hand television was affecting the broadband signal.
The owner, who does not want to be identified, was "mortified" to find out their old TV was causing the problem, according to Openreach.
"They immediately agreed to switch it off and not use it again," said engineer Michael Jones.
While some properties in the surrounding area have Fibre to the Premises, several homes in the Aberhosan area are still limited to using copper-based ADSL connections.
[*] Broadband: Understanding REIN and SHINE.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by sjames on Wednesday September 23 2020, @05:33PM
Except that it actually happened and is well documented. A long wire is also known as an antenna, after all.
It takes a lot less power than you might think, especially with poorly shielded systems. It's why ethernet uses differential signaling on twisted pairs. Less well designed systems may be vulnerable.
In the early '80s (back when dinosaurs roamed the earth with purple mohawks), I remember seeing interference on channel 5 that seemed like it had some sort of coherent pattern to it. Careful examination revealed that the pattern was, in fact, the screen saver my C64 was displaying in the next room on it's monitor. Amusingly, I was watching Halloween and the screen saver was a jack'o'lantern.