A strange signal that has been interrupting a South Island council’s water monitoring system is being investigated by a government department.
Waitaki District Council said its water and wastewater plants send data back to Oamaru but that the information from Hampden, Herbert and Moeraki had been recently disrupted.
“We’ve had a strange signal interruption that sounds like a machine-gun like thudding.”
In a statement, Waitaki District Council confirmed to 1News the disruptions have been “occurring for the past two months or so but is intermittent”.
The council said it did not occur every day but that it crashed its systems for the entire day when it did.
“It’s not extraterrestrials, and we think it’s either a GPS System or a Digital Repeater that’s tuned into our frequency.”
The disruption was a “pretty big deal” and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) is investigating, the council said.
Residents within a 9km radius of Hampden who use a GPS system or a digital repeater were asked to check their equipment.
“We decided to alert the community, in case someone has a digital repeater or GPS system that has accidentally been tuned to our band in the hope that we can resolve this.
“Please check you’re not tuned onto the frequency we’re licensed to use for our water equipment.”
MBIE radio spectrum management national manager Claire Smollett confirmed to 1News that investigators were looking into a reported case of interference in the Waitaki District.
“The source of the interference has yet to be confirmed so we are unable to provide further details at present.”
