A swimming pool, RFI and a lightning strike: My SWLing Story

by Troy Riedel

New readers will not recognize my name.

Longtime readers may not recognize my name, but chances are you may remember my story.

I once contributed posts to this Blog … until … ‘the swimming pool’. During COVID, my wife decided she wanted an in-ground swimming pool. The construction started in May 2020 and was completed in May 2022 (note: my pool contractor is now out of business; he ruined another company’s business as a ‘partner’, has many lawsuits filed against him, and I know he’s served time in jail under work release – all subsequent to our project).

No exaggeration.

If you’re interested in reading the entire story of my problem, I’ll refer you to my last two posts here:

For those who don’t have time to catch up, here’s an overview:

Late in the pool construction after the bonding was installed and the concrete deck was poured, I turned on my collection of portable shortwave radios, and I experienced the worst, most horrendous EMI/RFI imaginable. Nothing – and I mean nothing – on the shortwaves was intelligible. 100% uninterrupted static.

The SWLing Post Nation was great. I must have had three dozen? … four dozen? … people comment and offer advice (both on and off the Blog). And I received very detailed opinions, suggestions, and analyses via my personal email. Unfortunately, nothing mitigated my problem. My actions:

I hired an independent electrician at an hourly rate to check the pool & the entire house – he could not find the problem.

I called the power company (Dominion). To Dominion’s credit, they dispatched an expert and a ladder truck, but they confirmed the source was not from the main power line nor from their transformers.

So approximately 5-years ago, I was forced to abandon the SWLing hobby. Early on, I’d turn on my radios every two months to see if my issue abated. After a while, I checked quarterly. Then semi-annually. In the last year or two, I’ve turned on my radios every winter to check and every time, I still had the horrendous and almost incomprehensible EMI/RFI issue rendering my SW radios as paperweights.

Fast forward to recent history.

In late June 2026, my house suffered a direct lightning strike. The bolt struck the metal chimney cap. My wife & I were sitting in the room with the fireplace and the entire room glowed! There was no fire, but I had a hole in the siding. One of my six security cameras was blown off the side of the house. Flames literally shot out of one electrical outlet on the opposite side of my house. In total, I suffered over $13,900 in damage (thank you, Allstate Insurance).

The pool suffered two damaged items: an outdoor ground fault outlet and the pool light were both fried (the light and the connected transformer for the light both connect to the ground fault circuit outlet).

One of the SWLing Nation friends that I made five years ago is Ken English. Every so often he’ll send me a text message, and we’ll have a friendly chat. Last Saturday Night, he reached out and we text chatted. During the chat I mentioned the lightning strike. He replied, ‘Did it [the lightning strike] change your interference problem?’

Hmm, great question. Did it? How could it? But wait, maybe somehow it did!

I turned on my radios and guess what? The interference is gone! And I now know the source of this five-year problem that knocked me off the shortwaves. The pool light!

The pool light is underwater. The power cord to the light runs underground for 80-feet where it connects to the transformer, which is on the ‘outdoor power panel’ that runs the pool electronics and equipment. I had a professional replace the light and transformer which required snaking 80’ of power cord out and replacing it with a new 80’ power line.

I’m not an electrician. I can’t explain the dynamics behind it. But a direct lightning strike that caused over $13,900 of damage has me back on the shortwaves!

Thank you, lightning. And thank you, Ken, because without your Saturday Night text, I would not have discovered that my 5-year problem was mitigated until – probably – some cold, cloudy December night.