In case you ever wondered what PG&E’s (or really an utility company’s) electrical arc noise sounds like on an actual radio, here’s a short video in which you can hear how that awful 120 pulse-per-second racket actually manifests in a real-world scenario:
I start out tuned to 3.560 MHz, which happens to be about where my 80/40/30/20m fan dipole antenna is resonant on 80m. I’m using AM mode at the request of the folks at the ARRL for the purpose of documentation. Though this would normally be a lower-sideband segment of the band, it helps to hear the noise over the background static to decode as AM.
Toward the end of the video, I tune to WWV on 15 MHz, which is a bit above where my 20m antenna is resonant, so the reception isn’t quite as good. When PG&E is not partying like it’s 1899 with their unintentional spark-gap transmitter, WWV is still clearly audible… not so much when they are producing this RFI though.
It’s worth noting that this broadband noise doesn’t affect only the amateur radio spectrum. I’ve charted it as low as 1600 kHz (AM Broadcast band) and all the way up to 450 MHz (UHF) and everywhere in between. There’s a reason spark-gap transmitters are forbidden by international treaty, and this is it: electrical arcs produce tremendously wide signals and horrific broadband noise. This noise affects AM and FM commercial broadcasts, Shortwave radio, government and public safety, VHF and UHF television, and even cellular phones.