Hi Dave.

If you'd like, I can send you some ferrites to experiment with. But sadly, in that situation, I wouldn't expect much relief from ferrites. Ferrites on a feedline stop the feedline from radiating - which suppresses RFI outbound, and also prevents the feedline from acting as an antenna that can conduct noise into the system. That could be substantial, but I would not be overly optimistic. At my place, with all my antennas on the roof, it did a good job of blocking my own RF from blowing up everything in the house - the feedline running across the roof directly under the antennas coupled my own RF into everything. Feedline ferrites did a good job of knocking that out. But I see very little difference in the noise picked up by the antenna, because most of the noise I'm hearing is being picked up directly by the antenna.

Ferrites work wonders to quiet local noise makers by isolating their "antenna" - their wires from their internal noisemakers - their internal power supplies.  But your antenna picks up every noisemaker - that means all those belonging to neighbors too. 

Noise sources in your own unit are pretty easy: step one is always to pull the fuses on your own house and see what if any noise goes away. Any individual noisemakers in your place can be quieted with ferrites, unplugged, or otherwise dealt with.  The under-counter lights in my kitchen still blow the S-meter up. The fix would involve digging into walls, so instead, I make sure they're off. 

An ever-more-popular solution is to listen using one of the SDRs that are available on the internet - with research, you may find one near you. Then transmit with your own antenna. It is not as satisfying as scooping up the RF with your own copper, but it works well on occasion. 

73 Chris NW6V


On Thu, Oct 6, 2022 at 9:10 PM D.J.J. Ring, Jr. <n1ea@arrl.net> wrote:
Hello friendly group of Morse operators.

Over the past few years QRM man made noise has just come up from S2 to over S9.

I now live in a condo in a suburban town. 

I'm used to the old days when I heard everything!

I have no control over anyone else's noise. My antenna the only one possible is a 80 foot wire out the window and ending up in the trees of the neighboring woods.

I see Palomar Associates sells ferrite rings to wind feedlines around, the same rings to wind power cords around, little snap on ferrites for microphone cables, etc.

Is this worth considering? Does it work?

73

DR
David N1EA 
Your co-conductor of this merry list.
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