I have from time to time experienced hearing noise in my receivers caused
by rain hitting the antenna. I believe this is called "shot" noise. A
friend of mine, N1GIQ, has mentioned to me that I should really try to
protect the front ends of a couple of my Collins 75S-3 receivers and also
my Icom 765 from this noise and ESPECIALLY from what he calls "snow"
static/noise. Now I have done some checking and I cannot find any
printed material which alludes to this snow static. Apparently, it can
build up quite a charge and if it would wipe out the front end on a
tube-type receiver I can imagine what it does to a transistorized receiver.
I guess that I have just been lucky these 47 years that I've been a
ham and haven't been nailed by "snow" static. Has anyone else come across
this phenomenon and should I really be worried. Would a lightning arrestor
provide protection against this? I don't think so. I've always thought
that back to back diodes across the antenna terminals was a pretty good
precaution, but don't know how to do this with a transciever. Your
comments would be welcome.
Regards,
Bill Haselmire WX8S
Highland MI
wbh3@chrysler.com
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