Another Strange One

[Scott Gardner]

Several weeks ago the light in the master bedroom closet became  
"unautomated". It's controlled by an Insteon Icon relay switch  
(working in X10 mode) and an MS13 (I think) motion detector.  
Everything else seemed to be functioning correctly. The log looked  
good as it was showing the motion triggers and sending the on's and  
off's, but the light responded to neither. So, I'm wondering what was  
blocking the signal from reaching the Icon switch, but all other  
devices were working. Since I have some spare CM11's around I decided  
to swap the one responsible for talking to that switch. Bingo, that  
fixed the problem. Seems like the CM11 just got too weak or something.  
A couple of weeks later another strange (actually stranger) thing  
happened. Now the same closet light would always come on with motion,  
but never shut off. Now I was really stumped. So I'm thinking, what's  
new or changed in the home recently. Starting my investigation in the  
basement near the AC panels and the CM11's I immediately noticed the  
new AirPort extreme base station that had replaced the old Airport  
"snow" base station. I unplugged it and now the light once again  
functioned normally. I don't have any of the plug in filters around (I  
have never used any filters so far), so how do I correct this issue?  
Well, all I did was plug the AirPort into the other leg of the split  
AC on that panel and all is working fine again. Out of curiosity I  
also plugged my Elk X10 signal meter into the same circuit as the  
AirPort expecting to see a lot of noise, but it showed none at all,  
zero, zilch. I'm not sure what the lesson(s) is here, but it was  
strange enough that I thought I should share.

-- Scott --