[Lowfer] 600m wide open again...

[Mike WE0H]

I have always thought of all the people that say they will listen and 
then report back later that they heard nothing. Likely they too have 
local A/C mains noise issues. Example, local guy about 35 miles south of 
here has been trying to hear my signal for a while now. He reports 
several times that he hears nothing. I go drive 5 miles further south of 
his QTH with my portable RX loop and the Sangean, and guess what? My 
signal is crazy strong down there on my receive equipment. Heck, I don't 
even need my portable loop on some days, just the internal loopstick 
antenna. I had to deal with noisy street lights here but now the new 
lights are installed and I have zero A/C mains noise. Huge difference 
getting rid of the noise.

Andy, you'll get it figured out and then you will be totally shocked by 
what you can hear. Get rid of that BCB attenuator, do build up a 7 pole 
or better lowpass filter with about a 515 or 525kc cut off freq. Install 
that inside your radio if you can, for sure in a shielded box if it 
resides outside of the radio. Use -2 iron powder cores, T37-2 or 
something small that would fit in your radio.

Mike



Andy - KU4XR wrote:
> Hey Mike, and all:
>
> It's been a long time since I tried to listen in a wider mode,
> I did Wed. night and started finding some of my 600 meter
> reception problems. The static levels at 2.4 KHz wide is still 
> up around S-9 to 15 over. I have horrible birdies and powerline
> carriers, but the unknown to me noise source was a bad powerline
> buzz somewhere in my vicinity, Been here before - gotta go track
> it down and tell the power company where it's at. I absolutely
> did not know the noise levels around me were so attrocious.
> Listening in the A.M. mode was deafening, and in USB, there is 
> no quiet place in the 505 to 510 window. Continuous overlapping
> noise sources at S-9+ readings. There's no wonder anymore for me
> as to why I haven't been hearing anybody; and knowing that I 
> have a great receiving setup. Even with the best of filtering,
> noise of this magnitude is causing me severe reciever de-sensing.
> Add to that about 12dB of BCB attenuation that is still in the 
> rig, and all of this is starting to make sense to me now. The only
> 2 stations I could hear on Wed. evening was Pat - XSH/6, and
> WE2XGR/2, don't know were he's at ?? All this time I've been
> thinking that 600 meters was just dead, with no activity. 
> At least I know now that's not the case.
>
> 73 all, and have a great day: Andy - KU4XR