I've just installed one of the red corners shiny new ELV controllers (with MOVA). It all works great, no dram, problems or anything to cause concern. However a couple of days ago a member of the public rang in to complain that his local radio station fizzes out whilst going through the junction which was never the case before.
I originally scoffed at such nonsense having been sat listening to Sir Terry and Chris Evans on many occassions whilst 'tweaking' things. He might however have a point!
All of the national stations are clear as a bell, the local BBC station is fine but for some reason a couple of the local commercial stations dissapear in the vicinity of the site but re-appear when you have gone through. I am going to raise this with the red corners people as it seems very odd. Has anyone else come across this?
Looks like you're the first but it would be very interesting to hear the outcomes. Potentially this could call into question the process of self-approvals and/or the meeting of EMC regs.
On a similar note I remember working for Derbyshire when we fitted a MVD and it interferred with someone's Sky dish reception. Could be a similar issue perhaps as that seemed to be location specific. Perhaps it's only an issue where signal strength of the media is low.
Matt, We have had one of the controllers in question installed for quite a while now and have not experienced any similar issues. i regulary visit the site and drive through it and the local radio is fine. I do however remember when i was doing maintenance a few years ago we had issues with a particular brand of vms sign that interfered with the tv signal of the neighbouring houses.
A simple solution to test would be visit site and then power down the controller while listening to the radio. It would be a new one on me as I assume that EMC tests are carried out on all street furniture to prevent this type of thing.
In Cornwall we have had vaguely similar experiences with radio control gear but nothing with permanent signals. We have had a set of wireless battery portables affecting pub TV on a junction. Also we have been approached by offcom when we had a failed radio modem in a VMS affecting Police Radio.
We have had a situation where a microwave detector was effectively pointing at a satellite dish someone had installed in their garden on the opposite side of the road round a slight bend from a Pelican. Ofcom asked us to go on site with them to power it down for a while to establish that it was the source of the interference - we did and it was. Ofcom said that was fine, ours was approved equipment operating correctly, it was up to the complainant to set his equipment up so it wasn't receiving out of band signals - and he was going to be charged for the visit.
The red corners engineers have nailed the problem down by process of elimination to a faulty reg tray, very easy fix and Kerrang FM fully restored in all its glory! :-)