Topband: Local noise

[Rick Karlquist]

Raoul Coetzee wrote:
> The static crashes were about s2-s7 on a low dipole but while I was
> listening, the power came back on,(my radio still only connected to the
> battery and antenna)
> The noise went up immediately  to s7-9 plus! And it stayed there.
> But it was not the S-meter that bothered me most,  it was the total
> increased qrm level that swamped the band.And all the time I blamed qrn!
> 73
> Raoul, ZS1REC
>

I have taken my mobile station to a location away from any power
lines and seen a similar drop in noise, from S9 to S2.  During the
day, I can hear WWV 1000 miles away from this location when it
would be inaudible anywhere else.  I drove up to the isolated location
during the Stew Perry warmup in October.  What I found was that
after the band opened up, the propagated skywave noise came up
to the extent that the isolated location was no longer a big
advantage over civilization.  Even from the isolated location,
I was still often hearing only one side of some east coast to east
coast QSO's.  Any DX I could hear was also being heard by other
west coast stations, who were calling it.

Another issue is that the mobile has a vertical antenna.
In power line areas, you can get a big improvement on a vertical
antenna by using a horizontally polarized antenna.  Thus the
drop in noise on the mobile somewhat overstates the situation.

Rick N6RK