Paul: A very enlightening report. I think other subscribers would be most
interested in your further successes and tracing techniques as you move
forward....please!
73 Mike, K5UO
From: "Paul Christensen" <w9ac@arrl.net>
Subject: Re: Topband: 160m Noise Floor
To: <topband@contesting.com>
Message-ID: <C6EC3FC195C54318B4EB8CD09B6FD431@DBTOA000>
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> "My QTH is in a suburban neighborhood surrounded by other houses. Manmade
> noise sources in the area are producing a receive noise floor of S-9
> across the entire 160m band. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to
> reduce the noise?"
One device at a time. I'm presently in the middle of an exercise to
minimize my own noise floor. In the last couple months, I've identified
nearly a dozen internal sources. Here's a partial list from memory of what
I found:
1) Toshiba DVD Player;
2) Sony PlayStation 2;
3) Switch-mode wall-wart on my Netgear router;
4) Switch mode wall-wart on my Netgear WAP;
5) Switch-mode wall-wart on my Neatgear Ethernet gigabit switch;
6) Switch-mode supply on my Dell home office workstation;
7) Switch-mode supply on my Dell shack PC;
8) Fluorescent lamp fixture;
9) SEVERE RFI when my GE Harmony clothes washer runs (in our house, that's
the entire weekend).
With the exception of the washer, each of the devices produces low-level
noise and each noise source appears on different segments of the HF bands.
But each device will raise the noise floor by a few dB at different parts of
the HF spectrum, including 160m. The noise not only couples to
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UR RST IS ... ... ..9 QSB QSB - hw? BK
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