Line far worse than my neighbour - same cable on same pole

[#1]

The RF3 seems to make a difference. Last night the SNR did not drop below 9dB and from midnight onwards was hovering between 10 and 11 (I synced at 2304 following installation of the RF3 with 12dB target SNR)
That seems much better than the night before (pre RF3) when SNR was dropping to right down to 6dB.
By 7am it was back up to 12dB where it is right now.
Attenuation has only increased slighlty, now 58.1dB. I think it will solve some of my issues. Now, I just need to get my target SNR lowered so I can get better sync speed again. Potentially as its only dropping 3dB through the night, I may be able to keep a stable connection with a 6dB target SNR. Maybe I need to plead with Plusnet to get it lowered manually. Does anyone think they will do it for me?

[#2]

Do the error stats look any better now ?

[#3]

Hi julesandtash,
At present looking at the number of disconnections on the line (whether deliberate or not) I'd say it wouldn't be worth raising as chances are it would just raise itself again within a couple of days.
I could be wrong about this, but I suspect it'd be better to wait until things are more stable with the new filter before we try that. If it stays stable for the next few days then sure.

[#4]

Hi Jules,
Glad to see some improvement, going to be interesting to see a before and after SNRM plot and current stats.
There must be some strongish transmitters not too far from you, do you know of any, or do a search for any?

[#5]

Hi Anotherone,
I have been at work all day and its too late to try a resync now to push sync up so still at 2304kbps.
Stats are :-
Connection speed 2304Kbps (Downstream) / 448Kbps (Upstream)
Noise 12.0dB (Downstream) / 14.0dB (Upstream)
Attenuation 58.1 dB (Downstream) / 31.5dB (Upstream)
Power 17.2dBm (Downstream) / 11.9dB (Upstream)
Errors are much better, the following are recorded for the last 25Hrs
ATM Cell Header Errors 684, ATM Loss of Delineation 54, DSL Cumulative Errored Seconds 580, DSL Corrected Blocks 20125, DSL Uncorrected Blocks 782.
All other error counters are zero!
The Caradon Hill transmitter is around 4 - 5 miles in a straight line. Its a main TV transmitter and also carries FM radio (dont know if there is AM on it).
There are also 3 mobile phone masts within 1/2 mile of me although being microwave frequency I dont imagine they have too much effect.
I will record a plot for tonight although to show the whole night will take a fair few screen shots. Last nights trace was pretty good, noisiest time was around 2200 to midnight (9dB) it then picked up to 10 for the early hrs.
Orbrey - thanks for the update. Many of the disconnections have been down to me messing about with new face plate, fitting RF3, trying to sync at best time of day, disconnection due to ERR_DMA error last night and the power cuts during the storm. I wont mess with it for the next few days. If its stays OK then would it be OK to ask for a target SNR drop on Monday?

[#6]

from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caradon_Hill_transmitting_station

Quote

Channels listed by frequency Main mast and building Analogue radio (FM VHF)     * 95.2 MHz - BBC Radio Cornwall     * 102.2 MHz - Pirate FM     * 105.1 MHz - Atlantic FM Digital radio multiplexes (DAB)     * 218.64 MHz (Block 11B) - NOW Cornwall Multiplex     * 222.06 MHz (Block 11D) - Digital One     * 223.94 MHz (Block 12A) - South West Digital Radio Limited (UKRD and NOWdigital partnership)     * 225.65 MHz (Block 12B) - BBC Digital television     * UHF 21 - Multiplex A SDN ERP 100 kW (UHF 48 4kW pre-DSO)     * UHF 22 - Multiplex B BBC ERP 50 kW (UHF 21 4kW pre-DSO)     * UHF 24 - Multiplex C Arqiva ERP 50 kW (4kW pre-DSO)     * UHF 25 - Multiplex 2 Digital 3&4 ERP 100 kW (UHF 31 4kW pre-DSO)     * UHF 27 - Multiplex D Arqiva ERP 50 kW (4kW pre-DSO)     * UHF 28 - Multiplex 1 BBC ERP 100 kW (5kW pre-DSO) Analogue television Analogue signals where switched off permanently on 9 September 2009.     * UHF 22 - BBC One     * UHF 25 - ITV1     * UHF 28 - BBC Two     * UHF 32 - Channel 4

[#7]

Well that certainly covers the TV and FM side of things - the mast is absolutely bristling with antennae though so I guess there could be loads of other stuff up there too. There are also two smaller masts next to it.
Am off to bed in a second but just took a look at the router stats figure at the bottom of my screen, sitting on 10dB despite it being 21:40hrs - I think the RF3 is definitely helping. Router stats has shown that the SNR has not dropped below 9dB all evening. In fact its been hovering between 9 and 10dB all the evening since around 16:30hrs. As my router only displays snr in whole dB increments (no decimals) I guess that in reality the snr has actually just see-sawed slighlty around 9.5  but the rounding off of the value has caused the alternation between 9 and 10.
Errors are still really quite good too.
It may be a little early to celebrate but it does seem to be £7 well spent.

[#8]

That certainly sounds promising, hope it continues like that for you.

[#9]

Thanks Chris, its still looking good tonight too. Tomorrow evening will be 3 days stable sync so profile should be back to 2000.
I will leave it be over the weekend but if someone could look at droping my target SNR next week (assuming no disconnections in between ) that would be great.

[#10]

Fingers crossed it stays stable for you, give us a nudge in here next week and we'll see what we can do about your SNR.

[#11]

At 4 to 5 miles - the out of band noise from those broadcast transmitters will be fairly low power density, and the antenna multicouplers ( mix several transmitters for feeding to one antenna) will filter it out ( takes me back to when  I worked on the original ones at Marconi !!! ).
But as you say there is more than just broadcast transmitters  there - but they will be lower power.
And Cellfone 800/1500MHz - will likewise have little noise down at 1MHz
I'd suspect the street lamps or such other local noise sources

[#12]

I dont think streetlights are to blame as noise figures picked up well (pre RF3) whilst the streetlights were still on around 06:30hrs. Possibly something else electrically noisey. All our mains power is overhead and in the field behind me are some 32KV power lines but then I thought they would put out the same noise all the time.
Anyway, the RF3 seems to be working, no sync drops, noise not been below 9dB (currently 10dB), profile now up to 2000 and low errors.
A BT speedtest has just shown a 1500kbps throughput so not too bad a speed either considering all the network managing going on at the moment.
If Chris works his magic next week with target SNR I will hopefully be putting this saga to bed.

[#13]

You may have told us already, but wading through 7 pages isn't on my agenda right now...... 
Does your neighbour have a "modern" NTE5a (with Openreach logo), iPlate or filtered faceplate?
If so they will effectively have an RF3 on their line.

[#14]

Quote from: julesandtash

All our mains power is overhead and in the field behind me are some 32KV power lines but then I thought they would put out the same noise all the time.

Insulators breaking down and leaking in the cooler damper conditions overnight? But if it was that I suppose you'd also get more noise during the day if the weather was wet or foggy.
Also it seems it doesn't affect the neighbour so it must be something fairly local to you.
Do you have anything metal near the router or wires that could be acting as an aerial (e.g. central heating pipes, brackets for shelving fixed to the walls, desk legs)?
Have you tried moving the router or wires to see if that makes any difference?

[#15]

I do have an openreach badged NTE5. I dont have an iplate and I do have a filered adsl face plate.
I have taken the NTE5 apart and there are no coils in there, just a diode and capacitor on a PCB so no built in RF3 there. I haven't taken the face plate apart but I sont assume that there is an RF filter in there either since the results of using that or plugging a micofilter into the test socket are the same.
There are really no differences in layout between my setup and next door (the houses are mirror images). Neither of us have extenstions connected, both NTE5s are on an outside wall. No metal shelves or similar. Both them and I have a double socket a couple of feet from the NTE5 into which the router and phone base station are plugged in.
The phone doesn't affect things as I have tried switching that off and it makes no difference to the noise figures (and the only problem is at night anyway).
The one obvious difference is that my dropwire goes straight into the large black junction box at the top of the BT pole as do all the other lines on that pole (6 of them) whereas the line from my neighbour connects to a small grey box at the top of the pole which then connects via a short length of cable to the big black junction box. I have no idea what the grey box is or does.
Without  a doubt, and whether it should or not, fitting the RF3 filter has definitely stabilised my line a fair bit so I'm keeping it wired in. Once the target SNR gets dropped, I will see how the situation is. Hopefully if I still only get  a 3dB drop at night then it will support a 6dB target with low errors, especially if I aim to sync the router early evening.