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[RFI] Ugly noise environment

To: RFI List <rfi@contesting.com>
Subject: [RFI] Ugly noise environment
From: Pete Smith N4ZR <n4zr@contesting.com>
Date: Wed, 24 Feb 2016 17:26:50 -0500
List-post: <rfi@contesting.com">mailto:rfi@contesting.com>
I recently relocated temporarily to an urban apartment in Towson, MD. I set up my active vertical antenna outside a window, and was really surprised by how high the noise level is.

I've put an SDR view of about 200 KHz at <https://www.dropbox.com/s/op4t1wa8erk5k7v/Noise%20signature.png?dl=0)>. You'll notice that the noise floor at 14 MHz is around -100 dBM, compared to -120 at my rural QTH, and at some other frequencies the noise floor is as high as -70 dBM.

I'm used to line noise, but the thing that strikes me about this is the noise peaks that occur every 60 KHz. On AM, they sound like arcing, with a pronounced buzzing sound. There's also a "meta-period" to the noise - it is much worse at some frequencies than others - there are very broad noise peaks at around 5 and 10 MHz, and "valleys" at 14 MHz and elsewhere.

Does anyone have any ideas from this "signature" what I might be dealing with here? I'm in a bit of a "stealth" situation here, which tends to put a crimp in any thoughts of DFing with a VHF receiver and my 136-MHz Moxon.

--

73, Pete N4ZR
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