[AMRadio] Desperate for a RFI solution.

[Randy Berry]

I have the same noise issue on my SDRs. HF is useless while VHF on up
is fine. I don't have an SDRPlay, I have several dongles, a Ham It Up
upconverter and my most recent purchase is an RTL-SDR.com V3 HF+
dongle with direct sampling. I use Linux and gqrx and that works quite
well for VHF up. Linux has GNU Radio, which is pretty powerful stuff,
it's just beyond my ability to design my own software receiver using
that.

I'm kinda limited to SDR software that I can run. I've tried running
SDR#, HDSDR, etc. on wine (software that allows you to run some
Windows software on Linux) but no luck. I even know the author of SDR#
and he refuses to release the code so it can be ported to work on
Linux as well. As far as I know the SDRPlay itself doesn't work very
well with Linux either. At least there are no drivers for Fedora Linux
I can find.

The noise blanker on gqrx is not that effective. I wish it was, then
the problem would be solved. It is adjustable, but I haven't gotten it
to work effectively yet. The noise blanker on the 857 is also
adjustable. I've set it to max and it does nothing. SDR's are fun, I
enjoy playing with them but I'd much rather have a radio when it comes
to playing HF. That's why I bought a radio.

I can listen to websdrs and the noise floor is much lower, and I hear
familiar voices, yet on my end it's s9+ of  static. On 3885 KHz AM
right now it's up to 10 db over s9. I hear the whistling of heterodyne
so I know someone is out there. Meanwhile in Ohio (I'm in Michigan)
the noise floor is s5 and over s9 with intelligible signals.

I just don't know where this garbage is coming from.

On Fri, Apr 20, 2018 at 5:39 PM, Jonathan Rines <ka1tdq at gmail.com> wrote:
> My location is noisy on the lower bands to the point of being unusable. I use separate transmitters and receivers, so I have more options. I use an SDRplay for my receiver and the noise is eliminated using the noise blanking feature. Just one mouse click and it’s gone.
>
> Jon
> KA1TDQ
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
>> On Apr 20, 2018, at 2:14 PM, Randy Berry <randyn3lrx at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Hi,
>> I recently bought a Yaesu FT-857D and I have tried everything to mute
>> the noise in the receiver. I get an s8-s9 noise floor on every band
>> but VHF/UHF. I've tried everything I can think of to kill the noise.
>> This is not the first radio plagued by the noise. This has been an
>> ongoing battle ever since I moved into this building.
>>
>> Here's my situation. I am an apartment dweller living on the third
>> floor with indoor antennas. I am not allowed to have any outdoor
>> antennas on my balcony. (I've already been warned once with my stealth
>> shortened dipole.) So I am using 2 MFJ-1699T 10 band antennas and a
>> dipole kit in my living room. I also use a MFJ-939 autotuner which
>> works great, it will tune lawn furniture! It even does 6 meters which
>> it's not supposed to.
>>
>> Anyway, I get a constant noise floor as high as s9 on all HF bands. I
>> added a common mode choke inline and that dropped it some. (It was
>> even as high as +20db before the choke.) I can't even hear anything on
>> CB channel 19! I tried to hear the local 10 meter slop bucket net and
>> could hear faint voices but not make any intelligence out of them due
>> to the high noise floor. 144/440 is fine. I get little noise at all, 6
>> meters is a little noisy, but usable.
>>
>> I bought this rig because my standalone receiver died and I needed
>> something to listen to and since I can't use my K7DYY Super Sr.
>> transmitter anyway, I decided to buy a transceiver so I can talk too.
>> It does AM at 25 watts carrier, and one of the first things I did was
>> program in all the common AM frequencies on all the bands! Over the
>> years I have spent tons of dollars and countless hours trying to
>> resolve this and nothing works.
>>
>> I think it's the CFL's in the hallway. There is one every 10 feet or
>> so for the entire length of the building, on both sides of the
>> hallway. They are the only thing I can think of that runs 24/7/365. Is
>> there any way possible to clean up their noise so I can use HF
>> peacefully?
>>
>> I don't have any CFL's in my apartment. I'm still using Edison
>> technology, all my wall warts and switching supplies are clean, so
>> it's not coming from my apartment. I've even turned off the AC main in
>> my breaker box and tried on battery from inside my apartment. No
>> change.
>>
>> I'm open to all suggestions apart from vandalizing the property by
>> breaking all the bulbs. (Believe me I've thought of that already!)
>> Anything I can make or buy to filter CFL noise?
>>
>> tnx es 73 de Randy, N3LRX
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