EE router drops out any time I transmit on 80 & 40 metres.
Fibre 36Mbps FFTC, with the cabinet up the road.

The phone line comes in almost parallel with my inverted L, nothing has changed antenna wise
for 10+ years, but recently the router seems to get knocked out as soon as I go on the air.
100-200W max, no linear here. I rarely run the full 200W.

Large FT240-31 18Turns ferrite fitted onto the line in, all other leads connected to the router have
clip-ons fitted. Have tried the router alone just incase it is one of the other cables picking the RFI up.
Coax line isolator seemed to clear it, but its not a full fix.

Need real help here, other half wants me to sell the lot. and she is barely speaking to me.
I don't want too sell up. But it isbeginning to get to me.

Anyone...

Phil - G7BZD

I feel for you Phil, I get it in the ear if I interfere with the internet, luckily it rarely happens.

Firstly do you have a MK4 faceplate fitted? That has got extra filtering in it and the router needs to be as close to the faceplate as possible, this is a picture of mine with the choke on the incoming line:

Ours is a BT Openreach MK3 socket. Router is about 2 foot away on a shelf in the cupboard
next to the socket, all built in under the stairs.
I also have 18 turns on the ferrite.

Is it possible to get hold of a MK4, and fit it oneself ?

Phil - G7BZD

https://www.run-it-direct.co.uk/adsl-vd ... dslsocket/

Are you still using microfilters? These things:



If you are you need to remove them, they are no good for VDSL, you can replace the faceplate yourself, I got mine from here:
https://www.run-it-direct.co.uk/adsl-vd ... dslsocket/

If you have the Master Socket 5C, which you probably have as you already have a MK3 faceplate then it should plug straight in, then you can remove all the microfilters.

No micro filters in use, we binned them.
And the extension upstairs, which was old, was disconnected by the engineer who fitted the MK3.

Phil - G7BZD

That's good.

I just had a look at my old MK3 faceplate and I realised I had to remove the old Master Socket and fit the new Master 5C backplate. It is really easy, you don't need any special tools because there is a clip in the Master Socket, you lift the clip up and place the wires in and shut the clip down and it will Peirce the wires, all you need is a screwdriver to unscrew the screws that are holding the box on the wall.

You are not really supposed to do things like that yourself, but you shouldn't have any problems. If you are still killing the router then we will have to take a closer look at that, but one step at a time.

Just had the socket apart, the disconnected extension was stuffed in the back of the box,
looked like a rats nest of 8 cores, not exactly tidy, so the unused line has now been cut back.
And removed from the back box.

Two cores connect to the A,B terminals. Blue with a white flash on A White with a blue flash on B.

Phil - G7BZD

You might want to try it to see if your router drops out now that you've cut back the wiring, just in case the redundant wiring was picking up your signal and creating a voltage node in the box.

Todays plan :

Remove the rest of the defunct wiring from the cupboard.
Then see if theres any drop outs. Preferably while the wife is out walking the dog. She is at least on
speaking terms with me this morning, last night hostilities commenced as soon as I killed the internet.

Socket with back box, should be here tomorrow. I did note looking at some of the videos on you tube
that the A B wires are the wrong way round in the present box.

Phil - G7BZD

Just a quick question, is she using WiFi? If it still drops out try connecting her computer with a network lead just to eliminate the WiFi and try it, it's unlikely that is the problem, but stranger things have happened.

Don't rely on the colours going to A and B as gospel!
Our incoming is like yours a multicore hard tough black PVC overhead with just two cores used for the A/B connections, in our case two out of 8.
In our case they had not even used a pair from one twisted balanced pair within it, we had an Orange plus white on the A terminal, and a solid green from a different twisted pair on the B!
The engineer whoever he was that installed it had simply picked any old two of the cores and connected said cores at each end, the rest just screwed up in a bunch at our end, and no doubt at the pole also.
I had a bit of RF getting into my phone system, would cause one electronic answer phone to make tinkling ringing noises, and the router would occasionally drop out, I cured it my own way, although I am not recommending it as strictly speaking you should not do it!
All internal extensions, we have two, I rewired in "screened" version of CAT 6 cable, instead of the standard four twisted pair typical phone cable, and grounded the shields through a small high voltage capacitor with inline 47 ohm resistor and 100mA fuse, all sleeved in heat shrink, to the house general earthing system.
All unused multicore incoming strands of our to house supply cable were connected together and also grounded the same way.
That "sort of" turns the overhead to the property into a semi screened cable, as opposed to one with six floating parallel parasitic cables strung up in mid air.
It at least puts a grounded metal mass next to the active two.
The internal cables are now all earth screened, and the supply cable semi screened.
All my RF issues with the phone system have now completely gone, but I must stress I can't recommend it as technically its against the regs and installation agreements of the phone company!

Took out the old extension cable in the cupboard, found 2x joins definitely done by an X spurt.
For what would be a 6 foot run to the underneath of the stairs, there were 2x joins, soldered and
taped and about 12 foot of cable.

RF wise, 40metres and 20metres both seem ok, 80metres wipes the router out, not that I go on
80 that often. That was on 200W, normally play with 150W.
Although I have been in this position before, then it re-appeared.

Just need to get the socket. Theres plenty of cable in the cupboard to connect it onto. Not at all
surprised the colours don't tie up.

My drop wire comes across the back garden, after going up the road in front of the house in the
ducting under the road, then up a pole, and to another pole at the end of my back garden.
The cable comes in through the window frame in the back room, then into a white plastic box,
then the cable to the socket runs around the skirting to the hall.

If they ever get as far as fibre to the property, it will be at the front of the house, and the router
will be the other end of the hall, I hope.

Phil - G7BZD

It is definitely starting to sound like the RF getting into the router. I used to get enormous problems when I was on ADSL with the router supplied from Plusnet, it wasn't till I bought myself a decent Billion BiPAC 8800NL router things improved drastically.

It came in handy later when they offered VDSL 40Mbps download speed at less than I was paying for ADSL and the connection is rock solid, I'm about 500m from the box and the download speeds are constantly 38.2Mbps.

Just to add, the end of my antenna is about 3m from the BT drop cable.

My inverted L horizontal portion runs almost parallel with the phone line, with the house end
of the L and the phone line being further apart. At least 3-4 metres between them.
Things did improve when I put a line isolator outside at the remote switch, located in the outside loo.
Then the drop wire runs down the wall about 18inches away from the coax thats runs up to the shack.

Just had notification that the socket is on it's way.

Phil - G7BZD