TopBand: Topband Noise On Small Lots

[JRH]

I ran an experiment with my 9ft horizontal receive loop on the top of my
tower mast and the shunt feed for the tower (89 ft). Power lines are
close by so I was curious as to what was going on with the reasonant
tower on 160m and NOISE. My lot is approx. 75 x 130 ft. 

I have a pair of wireless earphones so I went out to the shunt feed
box and grounded the shunt feed at the output. My noise level dropped
and I could hear signals that were not there before so I put a 
normally open vacuum relay in line and it helps very much on receive.

I also found that the relay has another beneficial side in that the
flag antenna I put up is not affected by being close to the tower and
receives quite well.

Last year I was plagued by a 20db over 9 noise level generated by a 
street light 3 blocks away. 

I've done quite a bit of work on 160m antennas in getting ready for the
new season but it appears that conditions are worse than last year.

73/Ron, K6UR


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