[R-390] Broadcast radio at 2 meg

[Kenneth G. Gordon]

On 7 Jan 2007 at 17:57, Mark Huss wrote:

> Rain Gutters! Never say the words "Rain Gutter" to me! I start
> screaming uncontrollably and Shoot the nearest TV with a Shotgun! Now
> that I have settled down a bit,

I completely understand. 
 
> I first ran into them as an 18 year old kid working my second job as a
> Cable TV Repairman down in Austin Tx back in 71. Customers had really
> bad herringbone patterns on one channel. Up the Pole, Down the Pole
> for six days straight! Finally disconnected a house, and the
> herringbones went away. Turned out to be a poor connector up against
> the downspout of a rusty Rain Gutter. Replaced connector and jumpered
> the gutter with tinned braid and sheet metal screws. Told my Boss what
> it was. He told me I was full of it.

Well, you WERE NOT full of it. I had much the same kind of problem 
with rain gutters on a house next to a ham in Missoula, Montana about 
30 years ago. The ham was running a 100 watt rig to a vertical mostly 
on 20 meters in his back yard and was getting into his neighbor's stereo 
something fierce.

Neighbor's rain gutters were perfectly resonant at 20 meters. Grounding 
and bonding them dropped the interference to the stereo very 
noticeably. 

Then bypassing the LOOOOOONG speaker leads at both ends with .01 
mfd disk ceramics took care of the rest of it.

The stereo amp was one of those new-fangled solid-state jobbers and 
was particulary susceptible to diode rectification in some of the 
transistors' junctions.

Ken Gordon W7EKB