[Elecraft] Alligators

[Jim Brown]

There are certainly some guys who run far more power than is needed.
Yes, when we run low power, simple antennas, or both, we are competing
with signals that can easily be 20-30 dB stronger than we are.  It
isn't that our low power signal isn't getting there, or even that the
other guy has a lousy receiver. -- there is simply a "noise floor" that
consists of dozens of other stations calling him/her at the same time. 

But it's also important to remember that many guys are stuck with some
pretty high noise levels. That's my problem on 80 and 40 -- my dipole
at 45 ft sees an S8 on 40 and S9 on 80 with crystal filter set to use
the SSB filter and the preamp on. Of course I can pull that level down
a lot by going to narrower bandwidths, but the noise level generates a
lot of ringing due to the filter slopes.  Signals were quite good on
40, especially Friday night, so I was able to work a lot of DX on that
band in spite of the noise. But I could only hear a few of the stongest
DX signals on 80, and made only about 25 QSO's there. 

For all practical purposes, the noise blanker in my K2 does nothing at
all with this noise. The blanker in my Omni V is somewhat effective,
sometimes reducing it by a couple of S-units. When I have time, I'm
going to experiment with an active antenna noise canceller that I
bought on EBay. 

Jim Brown
K9YC