[Fists] Station setup

Mon, 20 Oct 2003 00:44:35 -0400

A very simple, but surprisingly effective method of tracking down radio
broadband noise is to use a portable AM/FM receiver.  The larger sets are
the ones to use if you have one.  (Something on the order of about the size
that used to use six D cell batteries works best - about 8 by 6 inches or
larger).

Using the battery power, turn the radio to the AM broadcast band.  Find a
spot on the dial on or near 850 kHz - this is where broadband noise often
peaks up.

By rotating the radio, you can direction find the direction of the noise.
Walk towards the noise - this may take a while to get the feel of this.
Keep on walking - staying out of neighbor's yards, and out of dangerous
places, of course!

When the noise is SO strong you cannot null it out by rotating the AM
receiver, switch the receiver to FM.  Find a spot where there is no signal
on the band (anywhere on the band is ok for this proceedure).  Extend the
whip antenna, and walk towards the noise.  When the signal gets so strong
that you cannot pin point the source, reduce the amount of whip exposed.
Finally when you have the whip down all the way, go close to suspected
objects with the tip of the antenna - don't touch metal - or things that
carry electricity!

You will find your source of noise.

Cheryl and David Ring
KB0RQN -- N1EA

----- Original Message -----
From: "Justin Grenier" <[email protected]>
To: "Elecraft Reflector" <[email protected]>; "FISTS Reflector"
<[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, October 19, 2003 1:17 AM
Subject: [Fists] Station setup

Greetings,

This message may not exactly be typical reflector business, but I am running
out of moves.

My wife and I have just moved to a suburb of Portland, OR from Palm Beach,
FL.  I have set up my hamshack here in the new house...Much time has been
spent erecting and placing my antennae, which include an R5 vertical, and a
g5rv dipole.  This setup is not much different than how I had things in FL;
I was able to put a ground rod right outside my shack window, and the
conductor to it is about 4' long.  On all bands, my noise level with both
antennae is anywhere between S8 and 30-50dB over S9.  It is impossible for
me to operate with 100w, let alone 1w, and very frustrating as I am losing a
bit of cw proficiency.  There is no BPL test area around as far as I know.
We have 3 PCs on a router here in the house, 1 of them implements the
802.11b wireless thing...I have tried unplugging and shutting down all of it
with absolutely no change in my rx noise level.  Any suggestions as to where
I might continue looking would be sincerely appreciated.

73,
::::::

Justin Grenier, W3JGG
FISTS 9980, CC1461
QRPp-I 754  FP-QRP 668
Elecraft K1 0196

CW *is* ham radio

--- StripMime Report -- processed MIME parts ---
multipart/alternative
  text/plain (text body -- kept)
  text/html
The reason this message is shown is because the post was in HTML
or had an attachment.  Attachments are not allowed.  To learn how
to post in Plain-Text go to: http://www.expita.com/nomime.html  ---
_______________________________________________
Fists mailing list
[email protected]
http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/fists