I did the same thing Pete did with my Mark V and even with my second radio
hearing the primary CW tone at S9 +30, I couldn't even hear clicks, let alone
see them on the S Meter more than 400 - 500 hz away. This was running 200W,
vs. the 100W I run in contests, 20db of pad in the receiving radio and
antennas seperated by 250ft.
Interestingly, I was listening to a small pile-up calling the XU this morning
on 7005 (up 1) and happen to hear a pretty good click down the 1khz (the XU's
freq). I figured I'd swing up and see who the "offender" was. No calls will
be mentioned because it doesn't actually apply. The guy was S9 +20 (a
stateside 4 call). I happen to notice my Noise Blanker was on. Killed the
Noise Blanker, and guess what?! no clicks down a khz. Who's fault is the
click now?
We better be pretty darn sure of ourselves that our own sophisticated EDSP
(etc.) receiver isn't generating some of those offendeing clicks before
hammering on an individual. I'm not saying there aren't offending signals,
there are, but in my opinion, the key click problem wouldn't even make my top
5 list of RF complaints in contests.
Ed N1UR
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