Neighbor Using Scanner?

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Hi-

I'm in desperate need of help with 'odd' things that are happening in my house in the middle of the night:

1) My bedroom land line phone rings a few times in the middle of the night - it rings loudly and just once - just enough to wake me up. The number of the person calling doesn't come through on Caller ID and my service provider says they have no record of the calls.

2) My portable home phone was doing the same thing

3) My cell phone (from a different provider than my land line) would do exactly the same thing - once or twice even 'vibrating' even though I had that feature shut off. One night while it was recharging, it began ringing in a 'random' musical pattern - once I unplugged it from the wall, it stopped.

4) I finally disconnected all my bedroom phones, and a few nights later my electric alarm clock began buzzing in the middle of the night.

5) So I unplugged that and purchased a battery charged alarm clock. On the 2nd night I had that running, it rang twice in the middle of the night.

6) And I know this one sounds really insane, but 2 or 3 times this past week when all electronics in my bedroom were unplugged, I was woken up by what sounded like music coming from my window air conditioner. ??

Even if that last one is my imagination, it's pretty obvious that someone is harassing me - waking up several times at night is killing me. Not to mention the fact that I can no longer use an alarm clock - unless I can find a wind-up one (do they even make these anymore?) - so waking up in the morning is a big problem.

The houses in my neighborhood are relatively close (about 50 feet apart). I suspect some kind of electronic scanner is being used (by a neighbor?) to target the electronics in my bedroom and then make them ring, but I have no idea what it could be. Does anyone know? Does anyone know what I can do to stop or block this from happening?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

~Sleepless in New York

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Type: Question • Score: 3 • Views: 3,210 • Replies: 20

[+3] - el355 - 07/09/2011No - I hadn't considered that! I'd thought the aluminum colander helmet I wear with tinfoil antenna would do the trick, but alas - it hasn't...

I wonder why someone would do that, e. g. mischief, stealing wifi, what?

1 Reply

@jespah,

I don't think anyone's stealing anything - none of the 'ringing' items have wifi capabilities anyway. It's definitely more of a harassment issue.

There was some 'tension' with my neighbors on both sides a few years ago, but nothing in well over a year (which, interestingly, is almost exactly how long this 'night ringing' has been going on).

Aside from that tension, their proximity would be the only other reason I'd suspect them: how would someone a long (or further) distance from me be accomplishing it?

1 Reply

@el355,

How old is your house? Do you have any information about the house's history? I know this may sound strange, but I lived in a house for over 15 years that was built in the 1800's. There were even reports that the house had caught fire once and some people parished in the fire. It had at least a couple spirits in it. They would turn cell phones on and off, cook in the middle of the night, and I was told that many of the newer appliances/electronics that I had were all new to the spirits and they just liked playing with them because they were curious.

1 Reply

@el355,

I sympathize, and don't have answers.

When I first moved to this new place, I got a lot of fax machine calls - annoying, but they gradually stopped.

Next came one ring calls around 5:30 or 6 am, once in a while earlier, even way earlier. Usually I figured it was someone who was going to pick someone else up to go to work, calling that person with one ring to wake (him) up. Eventually that stopped. I can just picture the arguments - I called you, no you didn't, yes I did, no you didn't. I didn't have caller id back then, and couldn't get to the phone in time in the first place even if I did.

I have also woken to ring like sounds that I've since identified as my refrigerator - not the doorbell or phone.

In my case, I thought it was just dismal stuff and not harassment.
I guess that if I were you, I'd write or inquire to your phone company for advice.

0 Replies

@cletrusrichard,

C'mon... It's not ghosts - curious or otherwise. It's someone with a very good and working knowledge of radio and electronic frequencies who probably has some kind of scanner and thinks this is really amusing.

1 Reply

@el355,

have you considered lining your bedroom with tinfoil?

1 Reply

@Rockhead,

No - I hadn't considered that! I'd thought the aluminum colander helmet I wear with tinfoil antenna would do the trick, but alas - it hasn't...

2 Replies

@el355,

I wouldn't doubt it, if the holes in it are bigger than a 1/16 of an inch.

and no, I have no idea what that is in metrics...

0 Replies

@el355,

There could be some magnetic fields, faulty wiring and other electrical malfunctions be responsible for your problems. Why not call an electrician
and have him check out the bedroom, better yet, the entire house.

1 Reply

@el355,

That's what you get for rigging an antenna to the colander.

Copper screening will work better than RH's aluminum foil. There's a reason why they use it for Faraday cages.

To be serious, if there is one device that is consistantly affected, you might try isolating it from radio frequency interference, just to see if there is something you can eliminate. Try the foil idea, because copper screening is not commonly available at retail.

1 Reply

@roger,

Hmmm...

So what you're saying is that tin foil would protect something from radio frequency interference/waves, so if wrapping an effected item in tin foil worked, then I'd know it was RF interference?

That makes sense, but is RF interference the only outside interference that the tin foil would protect it from? Wouldn't it also protect it from electrical interference? And if so, what exactly would be the point in wrapping it?

1 Reply

@CalamityJane,

Thanks for your reply Calamity, but I think I'd rather explore the RF interference idea before laying out a million $ to an electrician ... Besides, if it was electrical, I'd expect that it'd be much more random (time-wise) and would be happening to electronics elsewhere in the house...

0 Replies

@el355,

First, I don't know that tin foil would work. As I say, radio people use a Faraday cage, and the only one I have seen is copper mesh, mounted on a copper framework. Whatever you try, if anything along these lines, remember to shield the bottom as well as top and sides.

I'm not an electronics guy, but I don't think there is even a possibility of straight electrical interference.

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Where - approximately - do you live? I have a nice piece of copper (we used to etch on copper).

But, copper foil may be available somewhere - I remember that people trailed copper on raised beds to keep snails out. (I post as extremely ignorant re this whole thing)

1 Reply

@ossobuco,

Thanks Ossobuco. I believe that craft stores (like Michaels, etc) carry copper sheets, but I think this subject is moving a bit off-topic: I'm not really going to build a faraday cage to put my phones and alarm clocks in. I'd much prefer to get to the bottom of where these RF signals are coming from... I'm in NY btw

1 Reply

@el355,

Sure, but you don't know that's the problem till you eliminate them. I'm very puzzle at the alarm clock participating in this. They normally have no way to respond to any outside influence, unless you count unplugging them.

2 Replies

@roger,

It was a battery-operated clock so I think there's a spook in the house. I think it's a bit of a stretch to say it's his neighbours, so it must be a spook. I mean, don't his neighbours need their sleep, too?

Twisted Evil

I say wrap everything in heavy-duty tinfoil AND copper sheets!

Oh! And invest in some good ear plugs!

1 Reply

@roger,

Hi Roger,

I just received quite an education from a 'true' Electronics forum... a group of electricians, ham radio guys, etc answering questions.

They're convinced it's RF interference. They believe the phones have all been 'dialed' because while wired phones work on audio frequency, the cell phone can't be accessed without going through my network/carrier - but neither can be accessed with RF. But anyway, the rest - as in, the alarm clocks - is all RF interference and they think it's probably accidental - like someone's faulty microwave or something down the street. I'm not so sure about that, but anyway...

They think I should record the sounds for a few nights and then contact the FCC about the problem. The FCC would come in and do some testing with a spectrum analyzer which would give them the frequency being used, and then Triangulation using directional antennas would then be able to find the direction of the source.

Got that?

These guys were incredibly knowledgeable and helpful, but this is giving me a bigger headache than the ringing at night. Neutral

1 Reply

@el355,

I'm not sure I would count on the FCC. They're kind of a "Big Picture" agency.

Have you checked with your neighbors to see if they are experiencing the same activity.

0 Replies

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