[RFI] Power outages and RFI

[Dave Cole]

Nooo...  Not really...

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 9:56 AM, Christopher Wawak wrote:
> Dave ... we don't .. we don't have to worry about you ... creating power 
> "holidays" on particularly nice weekends, do we? :) hihi
> 
> This was a great experience for me, and definitely made me look at that 
> ft857 sitting on the shelf unused in a different, more outdoorsy light.
> 
> On Mon, Mar 29, 2021 at 12:53 PM Dave Cole <dave at nk7z.net 
> <mailto:dave at nk7z.net>> wrote:
> 
>     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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