Can snow cover amplify EMI?

[Ronstar]

Neighbor lost a set of keys. His dog got out while I was plowing the road and my lot so he had to walk up around my place to get the dog. No problem I think, maybe got plowed out onto the berm as I cleared the area so get detector and BAM! EMI all over the place.
Front of my house has internet satellite out front and main electric lines are underground to house. Normally I get a bit of chatter if over the lines but when I started it up it was just nuts. Had to get quite aways away from the front of the house to quiet it. Ended up going to All Metal Motion, Sens to 0, Thresh to -2 and GB to 0 to get it quiet. Only thing different here is I’ve never played in the snow out here. Today, big melt off and basically bare ground and no EMI to speak of, can anybody confirm?

 

[IDXMonster]

I’ll give you my uneducated opinion Ron, it’s all I have to go on, besides my experience. In southern Wisconsin I’m no stranger to hunting with a couple or a few inches of snow on the ground! I have seen similar “flighty” operation in the snow where I KNOW that EMI is NOT the issue, because it never was before. My guess is that because of the crystallized structure of the snow itself, it is somehow “scattering” the TX and RX signals. Not by much...but the relatively much weaker RX signal MIGHT be getting interfered with to a greater degree in this way. It’s a simpletons guess, I have no idea how radio waves move through a medium like snow. But I know for a FACT that snow does somehow make a difference, because I can OBSERVE the effect.

 

[Ronstar]

Thats more than I know...... I just was not prepared for the onslaught of blips and bleeps. I could only associate it to the underground wires or the internet satellite in the immediate area.