DEW attack in Canneto di Caronia?

[l0st]

I have had a similar experience, water glass.

We live about .25 miles from a lake.

I have had some experiences like yours and some different - all same theme:
- Ring cameras going out
- Other surveillance having and issue
- Fried routers
- Numerous dead car batteries
- Lights going out quickly
- All batteries in the downstairs of the house draining simultaneously
- Bluetooth connections disappearing
- TVs changing channel
- Copious internet issues

I haven’t nailed it down to what it is that causes the above and more but know you’re not alone.

Maybe playing devil's advocate here but a lot of what yourself and Waterglass have described could be caused by a loose neutral either in your electrical panel, service drop, or at the transformer whether buried or on a pole. Pretty much all of what you both have described except dead batteries. Where dead batteries are concerned, they're just garbage now. I bought a brand new battery last year and it was dead after 6 months and I've learned that this is practically the norm now. (maybe not 6 months, but short lifespans). A bad transformer and/or connection to it will spew RFI all over the spectrum which can cause all kinds of issues.

If you want to check it, attaching a voltmeter on one leg and then turning on a large load (like a stove or water heater) on the other leg will result in a minor variation of the voltage, but it should still be relatively close to 120 VAC. If only leg goes way high while the loaded leg goes way low then you've got a neutral problem somewhere.

A place where I used to work had all kinds of problems with WiFi and the electronic devices on it that we could never really track down the cause of. Then, one day the microwave in the kitchenette died. Surprise, surprise once the new microwave was in problems disappeared. The relatively astute engineering group I was in had pretty much immediately dismissed the idea of the microwave being the issue since all microwaves are faraday cages. Well, turns out old microwaves can develop RF leaks.

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Thanks, Excellent response:

The ceiling fan is a Minka Aire with RF remote frequency. Its two years old. I installed it. I also have several test devices but NO Oscilloscope. No Ceiling Fan  issues for almost two years then this happened around three months ago: 

I first noticed that I could not shut off my Samsung A51 5G Smart Phone screen and put it into sleep. Nor would it go into sleep on it own. That same evening we went to watch TV in the family room so I used the remote to turn the fan on. The fan would not rotate but the fan light turned on I could not turn the light off with the remote nor dim it. I ended up shutting the fan light off by the wall light switch. 

The ceiling fan is installed in the same room that we have had two Stereo Receivers zapped and be not operational. It also took out [zapped] a Sherwood CD player and a Niles Whole Home Stereo Power Amp that powered all. All were on dual surge protection. I have replaced both Receivers and the Niles. So far so good at 1+ year of use. 

Just as I was about to call Minka Aire Tech Support after three days the fan began working properly and so do my phone. All by itself! I never contacted Tech Support. 

AUGUST 2024: 

OK, so on August 16, 2024 as in this past Saturday my A51 Smart Phone screen would not go into sleep so I could not shut it off, however the ceiling fan was functional and OK.

On Sunday, August 19, 2024 the Samsung A51 5G was back to normal and fully charged! 

ELECTRICAL POWER COMPANY

We have an in ground transformer 60' front the home near the street as all electrical lines are subsurface. Last year in August 2023 they sawed down a huge tree that was lifting  the transformer on an angle out of the ground. They al put in a new electrical line from another transformer as the original from 1994 was cut too short and put stress on the transformer connections according to their supervisor who I spoke with. 

We used to get 100's of milli-second power outages during a year.  Just enough to knock your Desktop off line but not enough to reset all clocks that dont have a 
battery backup. 

To date in 2024 just a handful of milli-second power outages

Have you ever seen "Ball Lightening". I have several Ring videos over the course of a week that show something coming up from the ground in January-February 2023 near our garage in the bushes near the property line. The Moon? It could be but but it wasn't on consecutive clear nights and the timing many hours off based on Moonrise for Columbia, South Carolina USA. Plus, it did not happen this year in 2024 as per the Moonrise tables. I need to get that video online!

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

I would be curious what the RF spectrum looks like when the issues are occurring. With a log-periodic antenna and an SDR with the appropriate software you may even be able to track down the source. Most ceiling fan remotes operate at 433 Mhz, so there is a starting point. My guess is that you will see a large chunk of the spectrum being shit on by some device somewhere.

I had WiFi issues at an old apartment that I beat my head against the wall getting to the bottom of. Eventually, I pulled out an on AM radio and tuned it to a frequency with no station broadcasting and went around the house. I noticed right away that about 10' from every single outlet the AM radio was picking up massive interference across the entire band. It was so bad, I could sit at the breaker box (in a completely different part of the building) and still pick up some interference - assuming it was coming from the panel itself. I flipped off breakers one by one until I found the culprit. I then left everything else off and went back into the unit to investigate. I found an old Chinese DVD player that I bought from Target some 10 or 15 years before was spewing out all kinds of interference. I unplugged the player and flipped everything else on and problem solved. Tossed it straight in the trash.

Another possibility:

I had some strange flickering in light and I could ever hear transients coming through the power lines through stuff like PC speakers that are always on but maybe not in use. My UPSes used to make weird noises as well and didn't seem too happy with the power quality, flipping on and off battery. This would happen randomly. I noticed that it seemed more likely to occur when the dishwasher was running, but couldn't nail it down because it didn't always happen.

Fast forward 1.5 years my well pump died. When I pulled it out, I found that the prior company that worked on it did not reinstall the pump with cable guides. The drop pipe with the cable taped to it had rubbed against the inside of the well casing, causing 3 or 4 spots where the cable was rubbed through. These were probably under water (I hit water at 30') so stray currents were likely grounding out to the casing. After I spliced up the well wire and installed a new pump and set it back in the well all issues are now resolved. I would never have guessed that the pump wiring was the cause. There were no other apparent issues with operation. I have a large tank and an HE dishwasher so I'm guessing that sometimes the pump never had to kick on because the tank wasn't drawn down so I never saw the issue while running a load of dishes while other times the pump had to kick on and the issue would present. TBH I initially thought I had just bought some cheap light bulbs.

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- Several GFI outlets going bad.

This points very strongly to a problem with grounding in the house, which would also be bonded to neutral and should only be bonded in one place.

The descriptions of the property and items affected lead me to believe the location might be "higher end" and in a hurricane zone. Is there a generator in place? Is it bonded or floating neutral? Is it permanently connected with a transfer switch? There are two "types"(configurations) of generators for use when attached to a house versus standalone.... the wrong one will cause issues.

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One thing I did back in 2023 was to load a free APP EMF detector onto my Smartphone. No issues throughout the house except it went nuts on the following:
...

All those devices were shut off at the time and all were on two levels of Surge Protection; Eaton Whole Home in Circuit Breaker box and a Monster Strip in wall receptacle. 

The LG TV was also plugged into a Monster HTS 3600 MKII Surge Protector Clean Power Stage 3. I owned it since 2008. I still has [5] functional banks left as the other already took "hits" and they are fried. The "hits" were in Atlanta. Once all banks are fried the unit is no longer functional. I was told by the Master Electrician that the Eaton with take three surge "hits" and then will be non functional and need to be replaced. 

Five Security Cam installers will no longer offer WIFI security due to its unreliability. They will only offer a hardwire security system with a 120V battery backup. 

Those EMF detector apps use the magnetometer in the phone. They're intended for measuring the earth's magnetic field and not EMF radiation, which is several orders of magnitude stronger. I would take the results with a grain of salt. Any metal object will be an antenna that will drive that thing nuts. I would use an AM radio tuned to dead air.

The surge protection you have will not help if the problem is a neutral bond issue. Common surge protectors use an internal component that is basically "one time use only" and then they either go open (no voltage) or work like a regular power strip with no protection. If you're the crafty type, its possible to buy these parts and replace them. They're dirt cheap.

I will attest that WiFi for security cameras is not only unreliable, any crook can go on Alibaba and buy a wifi jammer that will take down every AP in the neighborhood on two or three AAA batteries. Ring cameras will still record and upload the footage later, but if your criminal knows that, they can just 86 the cameras before turning off their wifi jammer.