I made a decision and took action which may have a major impact on my life, either positive or negative. Concurrent with my present mission to get power line noise cleared up in my area, I had suggested to the executive officers of our local ham radio club, PARC (Piscataquis Amateur Radio Club) the idea of forming an RFI (Radio Frequency Interference) committee. Such a committee would assist club members who might be experiencing any form of RFI, whether it be from power lines, misbehaving electronic devices, or whatever. It really encompasses quite a broad spectrum of things.
The PARC Executive Committee discussed the idea at their recent meeting, and the idea was put before the membership at last night’s general meeting. The members present approved the idea and I volunteered to serve on the committee, using my years of experience, my time, and my test equipment (including Mr. power line noise sniffer extraordinaire 🙂    The result? I am now Chair of the PARC RFI Committee! At the moment it is a committee of one, and may remain so for some time.
I made it very clear that I was not offering to be a point of contact between those experiencing RFI and owners of devices causing it, that I was only volunteering to aid club members in figuring out what the source of their RFI is and suggesting corrective measures. That means I will only be working with ham radio operators, generally one on one, which I’m usually comfortable with. Still, there is potential for some serious anxiety here. I fear having to somehow work around issues with my anxiety. In particular not being able to walk up to someone’s door and knock. I’m hopeful this issue will be mitigated by the fact I don’t have a vehicle, therefore the likely expectation and plan (I hope!) would be the member requesting assistance will pick me up at my home and provide transportation. That would make things very much easier.
As committee chair I will also be responsible for making reports to the PARC on RFI committee activities. That is not a potential problem.
So, while I am clearly somewhat apprehensive wondering what I have gotten myself into, I am at the same time excited to have found a role in which I believe my knowledge and equipment can be put to use helping others.
Also I decided to take yet another financial risk. Yesterday I ordered an additional piece of equipment for hunting electrical sparking (usually on power lines). It’s another sniffer of sorts, but instead of listening for radio noise, this one is ultrasonic. It is a very sensitive electronic “super ear” that listens for sound waves above the range of human hearing. Electrical sparking makes such high frequency sounds. While the radio frequency sniffer device can lead one to the right area and often identify a specific power pole, this one can often confirm beyond any doubt that sparking is occurring on that pole and even narrow it down to specific pieces of hardware up there.
I’m telling myself this financial risk is acceptable in that if worse comes to worse and I absolutely need to buy a vehicle for survival purposes, I can raise money quickly by selling some or all of my ham radio equipment. Although I would hate to do that, the idea is sound. I could in fact raise significant capital on short notice.