[WIham] RE: RFI Kenosha

[Don Buska]

Thanks for the info Skip and Pete.

Last night was interesting.  The AM BC on 75 meters was weak.  I started 
playing around with things.  I have a big knife switch in the basement 
that will switch the fullwave loop to ground (feed with ladder line) in 
the summer months when not in use.  Side Note:  the 80 meter fullwave 
loop is an excellent lightening detector.  My Johnson Matchbox 
capacitors will start arcing over with lightening over twenty mile away. 
  I sense the electromagentic radiation before I even hear the stuff 
outside.

OK back to my experiments.  Well I connected my double bazooka up to my 
Kenwood R-820 receiver directly.  AM BC was still weak.  For some reason 
I went over to the loop and flipped the switch to ground and the AM BC 
stuff was loud and clear.  I was able to listen to WBBM on 3840KHz.  The 
good side is now I can catch the news anytime I'm on 75 meters, hi.

For grins I decided to put power into both 80M antennas and tune them. 
The loop tunes with a Johnson Matchbox and the Double Bazooka has a 
Millen 92200 on it.  After tuning them on 3840KHz the AM BC signals 
disappeared! I tried detuning them, switching the loop to ground again, 
etc. and the interference did not return.  Today it's still gone.  So 
perhaps it was just moisture or some other connection problem.  I have 
heard of the dissimilar metals acting as diodes in such situations too.

I guess the bottom line is to keep listening and inspecting till I find 
the culprit.  As is normal for us northerners, this stuff waits till the 
WX starts getting cold, hi.

A note to Pete, I too am in Somers.  I'm just west of Greenbay Road 
between HY 142 and 158 (52nd St).  At 726 feet above sea level.  Thanks 
for the kind comments on the website.  I passed up on a nice FPM-200 
about ten years ago at the Racine fest along I-94.  It was $150 and I 
passed it up because it didn't have 160 meters on it.  Dang was that 
ever a dumb move!  Maybe that was your 200 being sold?  Well no sense 
crying over it anymore, hi.  Pete if you want to try a local contact 
sometime send me an email direct.  I'm on 160M through 70cm all modes. 
well actually the 160M L antenna is down at the moment but hope to have 
it up before the snow flies.

Again all, thanks for the suggestions.  That fullwave 80 meter loop is a 
lot of wire in the air so if I've got some poor weathering connection 
out there I'm sure it is the cause of my crazy mixing problems.

Stay tuned es 73

Don N9OO