Close the barn door
On a visit to my dad's cousin's farm, I was asked to look at the issue with their modem. They would lose connection periodically. The phone company had already checked their lines. I was forewarned and came prepared with a spare modem and cables, including a 50 foot long RJ-11 POTS cable. When I started, it was not acting up. We chatted perused the net and such. My dad's cousin said he had to get some chores done out at the barn and went. We still saw no issues. We noticed the horses were out in the pasture and then the connection was getting flaky and dropped. I proceeded to troubleshoot, using my modem, my serial cable, using my 50 foot cable to connect directly to the outside phone box to eliminate the house wiring as the issue. No change, connections still failed. As I was disconnection the 50 foot cable from outside, I noticed their overhead POTS service line crossed the pasture diagonally on two poles. When I came inside I asked about the pasture fence, and when it was electrified. We shut off the fencer and modem connection was fine, problem found but not solved.
Dad's cousin was an electrician. Instead of re-routing the service line around the pasture, he added a ground line to the poles about a foot below the service line. It worked like a charm.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
