In reply to a post by Banger:

Don't forget street lamps. When I had ADSL Max I was getting enormous amounts of errors which turned out to be a sodium street lamp with a broken starter going off and on all day and it wasn't even near my property but it was on the phone line path which I tracked down using an AM walkman. I remember getting to the top of the street about half a mile from the lamp but could hear crackling from that distance on the radio, looked down the street and there was the lamp trying to come on and then going off again. Reported it to council they took it out of commission and a few months later the whole estate had new lamps.

A grand total of 3 street lights, but another thing worth pursuing. Thank you

Martin

Point I was trying to make is REIN can be anywhere along the cable route. I followed my underground cable back to the cab then started walking back along the route with radio, the lamp wasn't doing it on my first pass.

In reply to a post by Banger:

Point I was trying to make is REIN can be anywhere along the cable route. I followed my underground cable back to the cab then started walking back along the route with radio, the lamp wasn't doing it on my first pass.

Noted, and I will do do for that part of the route that is currently accessible on foot.

Martin

In reply to a post by BestofTimes:

As to the radio plan, it's open countryside and there are no buildings tall enough to provide clear los. I would thing two tmasts would be needed, the problem being that the planning authority have already given a formal opinion that planning consent would be refused. There is also the little matter of the fee that the estate owner would charge for allowing us to put masts up in the first place.

There are some link planning software packages out there that are free to use, and include terrain profiles, but not trees.

Any electric fences in the vicinity?

This American site has a couple of cases, though from an amateur radio perspective.
http://www.arrl.org/electric-fence

In reply to a post by Thumper:

There are some link planning software packages out there that are free to use, and include terrain profiles, but not trees.

One useful one from Ubiquiti:
https://airlink.ubnt.com/

Electric fences can have a more pronounced affect if they are being earthed somewhere along their run, tall wet grass brushing against the fence wire maybe.

In reply to a post by WWWombat:

In reply to a post by Thumper:

There are some link planning software packages out there that are free to use, and include terrain profiles, but not trees.

One useful one from Ubiquiti:
https://airlink.ubnt.com/

And
https://www.cambiumnetworks.com/products/management/...

UPDATE: BT Openreach reported that they had resolved my fault on the morning of the 14th which was confirmed by my ISP, Zen, later the same day. I ran various speed tests on returning home after work and am pleased to be able to report that the download speed is now hovering around the 1.3 Mbps mark with upload at about 0.3 Mbps.

These figures compare with about 1.0/0.3 before the fault and 0.3/0.3 during. My neighbours have reported similar improvements. This may not sound like much, but it is the difference between usable and useless.

Credit where it's due, at some points during this problem I have seen more BT OR vans whizzing around since the last time I wandered round a TEC. Whils I've not been advised of the source of the problem, I have a distinct suspicion that it related to work recently carried out by another utility about 700m away to the west. This had not involved any excavations but was significant in the light of the nature of the problem.

Many thanks to the hive mind of the forums for some mind expanding commentary and suggestions and to BT Oprnreach and Zen.for diligently following up on things.

Martin

In reply to a post by BestofTimes:

Credit where it's due, at some points during this problem I have seen more BT OR vans whizzing around since the last time I wandered round a TEC. Whils I've not been advised of the source of the problem, I have a distinct suspicion that it related to work recently carried out by another utility about 700m away to the west. This had not involved any excavations but was significant in the light of the nature of the problem.

So, what was going on ?