An LTE base station to facilitate identification of uplink interference serves a plurality of UE devices and one or more relay nodes. The LTE base station is configured to identify a first scheduling group comprising the plurality of UE devices and a second scheduling group comprising the one or more relay nodes based on LTE registration data, allocate uplink resource blocks by scheduling a first portion of the uplink resource blocks at one end of a channel spectrum to the UE devices in the first scheduling group and scheduling a second portion of the uplink resource blocks at the other end of the channel spectrum to the one or more relay nodes in the second scheduling group, and monitor for interference in the second portion of the uplink resource blocks to determine if the interference is associated with the one or more relay nodes in the second scheduling group.