[RFI] KC2IEB’s RFI Journey

[Charles Plunk]

Good point. And that line of site quality is a good thing to narrow down 
the area.

Are your referring to the W1TRC dish in the QST article? I built mine 
years ago with a prefab circuit board and the dish specified in the 
article. I have heard sourcing the dish is more challenging right now. 
If so, yes it works quite well. In fact, if i do not hear it with the 
dish i really begin to question if i am at the right pole. Yes there is 
a background hiss but once you hear an arc you will not forget the sound.

My recent fix was as high as 25db over S9 due to the proximity of my 
doublet to the pole. I heard it easily with the dish once i found the 
right pole......This is preliminary and I have more work to do but I 
still have some weak arc sound on some bands. Its so weak though I think 
natural noise is not allowing me to hear it on some bands. And yes I am 
hearing a faint signal in the suspect area with the dish. I need to 
match a noise pattern before I request they do more work.

I think though a new nut/washer and moving the ground wire will do it. I 
think my issue was decades of crud on the 7200v hardware was making 
enough of a carbon trace around the old hardware to arc to that ground 
wire stapled to the pole next to those nut/washer.

I am enjoying such quiet noise levels now I may not even mess with it. A 
little NB adjustment knocks it right out and most bands I dont hear it.

73

Chuck
AF4O



> Yes, good tool, but keep in mind that it will not hear an arc on the
> "other side" of
> a structure.  It has to be line of sight from the arc to the receiver or
> at least close
> to that.
>
> RE the QST article ultrasonic pin-pointer...has anyone built it?  If so,
> how
> sensitive was it....could you hear a very small arc at 50ft?   Was the
> circuit quiet...i.e. was there
> any "hiss" when it wasn't detecting any signal?
>
> 73,
> Charlie, N0TT
>
>