[RFI] QRN Problem?

[dgsvetan at rockwellcollins.com]

Randy,

Welcome to the group.  First, a few questions so that people here can help 
you a bit more quickly:

1.  Do you live in-town or out in the country?

2.  How close is your antenna to any power lines, electric fences, or 
street lights?

3.  If you are in-town, are there any commercial or industrial (strip 
mall, factory) buildings nearby?  If so, how close?

4.  Over what period of time have you noticed this noise level:  a week; 
two weeks; a month; longer?

As for your question about S6 as a "high" noise level:  It's all relative. 
 I live in a rural area.  When there are no power line or electric fence 
insulators arcing, and no grain dryers running, my residual background 
noise on the 40 and 80 meter ham bands is S1 to S2.  When any of the 
listed conditions exist, the noise level can easily hit S9, and even 
higher. 

Descriptive answers to the listed questions may help better define the 
problem.  Please let us know what you find.  That was a good move doing 
the power test with and without the UPS. 

73, Dale
WA9ENA

 



Randy Bell <rfb13 at yahoo.com> 
Sent by: rfi-bounces at contesting.com
12/03/2007 12:06 PM

To
rfi at contesting.com
cc

Subject
[RFI] QRN Problem?






I am new to this mailing list and so am begging your
indulgence if I post incorrectly or ask any dumb
questions.  My problem is QRN.  I have two receivers
at this time, a R-5000 model Kenwood  and a Drake 2B. 
Both of them are switched to the same antenna, a Alpha
Delta “Sloper” model DX-SWL.  This is a multi-band
antenna covering AM Broadcast band through 13m.  The
lead in coax is RG-58.   Within one S-unit, they both
show a background QRN of S5 on 80m and 40m.  It
doesn’t change much throughout a 24-hour day,
sometimes it’s up to S6, sometimes down to S4.5. 
Thus, stations must hit me with a fairly strong signal
for me to dig them out of the noise.  The first
question is:  Doesn’t this seem like a rather high
noise level?

Up to this point, I haven’t done much to chase this
down other than power the receivers with a UPS supply
while shutting off the main circuit breaker to the
house.  No change in noise level.  Just to ensure the
UPS supply was not the problem, I turned the house
current back on, but shut off the UPS supply.   There
was still no change to the QRN. 

I’m hoping that someone has a few suggestions to get
me started in trying to reduce this noise.  Thanks in
advance for any help. 

Randy in Aura, Michigan
WA8042SWL



 
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