[RFI] Power outages and RFI

[Dave Cole]

The instant the power drops here, my radio is on...  My noise floor 
drops from S7 to +10db over S9, to S2-3.

No amp, but with a 100 watts I am a happy camper.  We had a 6 day outage 
a few years back, and I got a ton of DX I never even thought I could hear.

Loss of power is a good thing here...  I have a Honda EU2000, and 
battery for the shack and house...

The heater, stove, and water heater all run on natural gas, so I do a 
lot of DXing during power outages.

It is truly sad what has happened to HF in the last 20 years.  I used to 
have an S4-5 background noise level on 40, as recently as 15 years ago. 
Now...  No chance...

I have been considering QRP from the mountains of late...

73, and thanks,
Dave (NK7Z)
https://www.nk7z.net
ARRL Volunteer Examiner
ARRL Technical Specialist, RFI
ARRL Asst. Director, NW Division, Technical Resources

On 3/29/21 5:30 AM, Christopher Wawak wrote:
> Just a short personal story:
> 
> My entire neighborhood lost power early last night. I sat around in the
> dark for a few minutes, then realized that this is a rare opportunity and
> sprinted down to the shack. I quickly hooked up my 7300 to a battery,
> flicked on the radio, and saw a thing of beauty. NO RFI! For a few short
> hours before power was restored, I had the lowest noise floor across the
> bands I've seen in the 6 months I've been active on HF. On the one hand, it
> was good fun catching contacts that were buried in the noise before. On the
> other, realizing that there's this much noise holding me back is a little
> discouraging.
> 
> Who else runs to the radio when the power goes out? Anyone have similar
> stories to share?
> 
> 73 KC2IEB
> 
> Chris
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