Topband: 160 condx last night

[Jim Brown]

On 12/26/2013 11:29 AM, Shoppa, Tim wrote:
> I went exploring with a direction finding antenna and my rig on batteries along the street, and the 120Hz impulse noise near the power lines on the street is far far worse than it is up the driveway at my house. But unable to pin down to any one pole.

Don't rule out a source that is connected to the power lines, but not 
generated by the power system. Two examples are solar systems and street 
lighting. There are, of course, many other possibilities.

You've done the right thing by heading out with your portable RX. The 
next move is to try to get closer to the source. If it DOES happen to be 
an arcing source, listening at VHF, especially with an AM detector, can 
help find it.  Some ham VHF/UHF rigs have AM detectors, especially if 
they tune the VHF aircraft band (above the FM broadcast band).

There's also the Tecsun PL660, a really nice DSP-based consumer 
AM/FM/shortwave RX that includes a BFO and an AM detector for the 
aircraft band. It also has a relative signal strength meter, and a port 
for an external antenna. It covers the LF and MF AM broadcast bands, 
shortwave from there to 30 MHz, plus FM broadcast and that aircraft 
band  The DSP IF combined with a decent front end makes it a very nice 
broadcast RX. About $130.

73, Jim K9YC