> A coworker used to work for FAA. He said he was sent out to find the source of a high energy source of EMI that was messing with Ohare Airport radar or radio systems. But it was so unpredictable that they had to sit around and wait for another round. They finally got a burst and got a direction. And a rough triangulation. When they arrived at one of the hospitals they had to work with facilities to ask if any new electrical services had been turned up - in fact they had. A big one. A brand new MRI that took a shit load of power. Working with the mri company they found an access panel cover had been left open and literally blasting high energy EMI directly at the airport.
Does anyone remember when TV transmissions were easily interrupted and know what the causes were? I remember on my grandmas TV we'd get a lot of snow when a neighbor was mowing the lawn for instance, he liked to mow right when grandma like to watch Sunday afternoon football.
I was young at the time so never really understood the cause and it stopped happening, possibly as we went from VHF to UHF transmissions. Was the lawn mower causing EM interference or something else, like an electric mower interfering with the powerlines themselves?
I used to see (i.e. hear) the same effect with an older car which I upgraded from mechanical points to a jerry-rigged EFI system. When I turned on the car, it would have a distinct clicking sound that came through the radio as the coil fired.
