For those of you who are consistent readers of my blog, you may remember that for some time now, I have had an issue with RFI. The problem it caused was that my contesting program N1MM+ would freeze while CW contesting on 15m and sometimes on 20m and 40m. As well, the Reverse Beacon Network website would get hung up while refreshing the world map and not stop trying to refresh the page. I would just see a spinning hourglass on the map. This only happened when I was on 15m, unlike the issues with N1MM+. I determined it was due to RFI, as when I dropped my power output to 60 watts, the issue was gone. Now, some might say just operate at 60 watts and FORGET ABOUT IT, as was said on The Sopranos, but as for me, I just can’t do that.

I decided to look into my internet connection setup. The motherboard I have for my PC does have WiFi via two small antennas on the motherboard. I am using a TP-Link extender in the hallway,

TP-Link extender

which has a LAN connection. I attached a LAN cable to the TP-Link and plugged that into a TP-Link LAN switch beside my PC. From the LAN switch, one LAN cable went to my PC and the other to the Icom 7610 radio. I tried split toroids on the LAN cables and LAN switch power cable. That did not work. I then just used the WiFi connection on the PC to the TP-Link extender in the hallway—that did not work. I then connected my PC WiFi to the main WiFi from our router in the living room, thinking the TP-Link extender could be the issue, and that did not solve the issue.

 

LAN switch

 

Then it occurred to me: during every test I did, I had left in place the LAN cable connected to my PC, the LAN cable connected to my 7610, both connected to the LAN switch, and the LAN switch’s power connected. I removed all these from the picture, and lo and behold, my issue was gone. Now, I did not start my happy dance just yet. In the past, I’ve had this false positive before and was let down when N1MM+ froze along with Reverse Beacon Network failing to update. It has now been three months of contesting and testing, and I am sure the issue is no more.

So what part of this LAN connection octopus was the issue? To tell you the truth, I don’t care, and I am just happy all is well once again.

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