[ADXA] I"M GETTING TIRED OF THIS!!!

[rcurt at centurytel.net]

OUCH! That hurt. LOL


On Wed, 12 Nov, 2025 at 10:49 AM, w5znjoel at gmail.com <w5znjoel at gmail.com> wrote:
 

To: rcurt at centurytel.net; 'adxa'


You won’t need that old TV preamplifier anyway. Ellen is no longer on TV and The View isn’t interesting, at least not for real men!!!  😊
 

73 Joel W5ZN/ZF2ZN
 


From: adxa-bounces at mailman.qth.net<mailto:adxa-bounces at mailman.qth.net> <adxa-bounces at mailman.qth.net<mailto:adxa-bounces at mailman.qth.net>> On Behalf Of rcurt--- via ADXA
Sent: Wednesday, November 12, 2025 10:38 AM
To: ADXA <adxa at mailman.qth.net<mailto:adxa at mailman.qth.net>>
Subject: [ADXA] I"M GETTING TIRED OF THIS!!!
 

I know 6 meters is the "magic" band. If this is true, 160 is the "black magic" band. 

 

Right in the middle of the beauty of the Aurora last night, I noticed 160 was getting funky (tech term), and it seemed to me that it may be a good time to test the phased pennants into Europe.

 

I wasn't seeing but a couple Europeans, so I checked AA6KJ and KB5WBH on pskreporter and they were seeing many stations in Europe. I was positive at that point, that broadside phased pennants were just not going to work out here.  My thoughts were that I did not have enough real estate for a phased array, without being in proximity to a metal building, or guy wires from the tower. 

 

The single pennant had worked extremely well for me last winter, and my thought was to scrap phasing, and go back to the single pennant which I thought was much quieter anyway.  Being a glutton for punishment and not a quitter, I decided in the night, while losing sleep over this issue, that I would move the pennant  one more time, away from buildings and wires , even though it would narrow the spacing drastically. Early this morning, I made the change and checked the noise, which was still elevated above what I remembered from last winter.

 

I suddenly had a feeling of "dread". WHAT IF, the phased pennants fail, and I go back to a single pennant, and it doesn't work either.  I had been noticing over a period of months, that my noise had seemed to increase, to the point that I had to reduce the preamp gain from 20db to 10db. 

 

Chapter 2....Back to square one....

 

I am a firm believer that when things don't make sense, you need to go back to a point that things do make sense. Last year I had isolated my noise to someplace outside of my house, and as near as I could tell it was northeast of my shack. I decided to repeat this process, and see if by any chance there was more noise than I had last year.  While listening on the inverted L with no preamplification and a S9+++ noise level (not a pileup s9, but a real s9),  I started turning off breakers.  I was overjoyed to find a breaker that when shut off, reduced the noise from an s9 to an s5, and brought back my old familiar power line noise that I had last winter, rather than the constant s9 buzz that had developed at some point.  Upon further investigation, I found a TV preamp in the attic that was generating about 10db plus of additional noise I didn't have on 160 last year.  If anyone needs this noise generating preamp to mess with their competition on 160, I will gladly part with it and hope to never see it again. 

 

So, I am back to square one. I'm gonna listen on the pennant with it spaced narrow, and if it seems to be normal , I will widen it back out for a real test. To be honest, I am breathing a sigh of relief preferring to use normal techniques on 160 than resulting to the black magic, of putting antennas in various geometric shapes, and mixing potions of bats and toads to pour on ground rods, and sip while trying to stay awake and work the midnight DX.

 

I hope everyone got to enjoy the aurora. It was amazing. 

 

Everyone have a great and noiseless day!

 

Randy/W5ZJ
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