rf interference

[mattrus]

HI 

i think i am getting interference on my radio equipment from your network  , see screen shot below of one channel of many i can see  , think you may have a RF leak near me,  i have done a RF sweep and seems to correspond with your Qam channels  , would it be possible to get your engineers to check the local cabinet 

thanks matt 

[jpeg1]

I can also see the VM channels on my spectrum analyser, but only at a very low level.

If all the coax cables between the street cabinet and the customers' equipments are properly terminated then there shouldn't be any significant leakage. But sometimes connectors become loose or cables get damaged. A worse case can happen if customers break their contract terms and fit their own extension cables.  Such a poor termination shows up as interference into the broadband feed and consequent data errors, but of course there will be radiation too.   

If you have a portable receiver you could walk along the street and identify where the signal is strongest, but I'm not sure how you could get Virgin to attend to it.  

Of course if this is causing serious interference to a licensed service you could report it to Ofcom

[mattrus]

Hi

We have a  cabinet in the corner 2 doors away ,  , i am going to have a go at tracking the leak  down , be a interesting little project and then ctry and contact Virgin again (gave up after being on hold for 15 mins)

cheers 

[Andrew-G]

If it is RF leakage, it could be from almost any part of the coax network, including on customer premises - faulty plant (CMTS, amps, cabs), poor connectors at any location, damaged or degraded coax, low quality customer-sourced coax, missing or poorly fitted caps, faulty or low quality in-line components.

If you find something, report it here - there's no chance of being able to report a technical issue via Virgin Media's telephone support, which is setup to enable poorly trained wage slaves to deal only with common faults for existing customers, and for the overwhelming majority of people (including me) the screenshot means nothing.  The forum staff here will be able to escalate any reported fault to VM's networks team, and it's probably only some people in that team who would even understand what you are talking about.  Or there's Ofcom's interference reporting page.