Chris,
Sorry for the late response but I've been busy doing spring yard work. Part of
that work was moving some radials from the grassy part of the yard to the
wooded section.
I also lost power on Sunday night for three hours. A severe thunderstorm came
through. We live in a heavily wooded area and power outages are common with
high winds.
I decided to turn "lemon into lemonade" and have taken two actions.
- I installed a 12 AmpHour (AH) LiFePo battery in the shack to power the radios
during these outages. A 12 AH will not run my radio at a 100 watt level for any
amount of time but I mostly receive during these outages to take advantage of
the enhanced reception.
- I have noticed the noise level steadily increasing, especially in the last 20
years. Now that I am retired I find I like to spend time outdoors instead of at
the desk in the shack so I've been doing lots of portable operation and
listening. You would be amazed at the reduction of the noise levels at parks
and beaches areas which are not adjacent to powerlines or buildings . It may
entail some hiking from the parking lot but the enhanced reception is worth it.
I've made go-packs so that I can easily carry a radio and accessories if I want
to receive, operate QRP or QRO(50 watts in my case).
I doubt the FCC will do much to mitigate noise is the MF and HF spectrum unless
it affects commercial, utility or government services which are abandoning this
spectrum, except as a backup. In the announcement announcing the Amateur Radio
Application the FCC stated "As we have noted previously, '[W]hile the value of
the amateur service to the public as a voluntary noncommercial communications
service, particularly with respect to providing emergency communications, is
one of the underlying principles of the amateur service, the amateur service is
not an emergency radio service.'" I think the best thing hams can do is to
diplomatically inform officials that Amateurs are like the "canary in the coal
mine". The effects we are seeing now will eventually affect other services
This abandonment of the MF and HF spectrum for communications could have one
positive effect; it will decrease the pressure to auction off Amateur Radio
spectrum to another services.
It's ironic that the semiconductor revolution in our lifetime which enables us
buy an excellent rig at an great price also enabled features in everyday
products which affect the media we operate in. Technology is a double edged
sword.
By the way, the 7300 in the Emergency Mode with the increased tuner range makes
a nice portable radio.
Mike N2MS
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