Topband: NCC-1 / NCC-2

[Gary Smith]

Folks,

I'm somewhat on the fence regarding 
resolution to RFI I have thanks to AMTRAK 
and some RFI coming to the south of me. 

I live at the end of a dead end. There is 
a salt marsh behind me & 1 mile + to the 
next house. AMTRAK is 100' to the north of 
me & it's one mile + from that to the next 
house. There is one house to the east of 
me & another mile + to the next house. To 
the south there are houses & RFI.

AMTRAK's arcing kills me at Gray line 
thanks to the commuter rush at the same 
time. I have too much RFI to the south of 
me and there's noise from the cable lines 
that I can't get them to fix. 

Here's what it is like most every Gray  
line when it's cold or damp in the 
fall/winter. This was 3C1L on TB and you 
can barely see him popping in two times in 
the below photo, only when the arcing 
stops for a few seconds. In those rare 
times he was Q5 but only for a few seconds 
and I then couldn't hear him. I had turned 
all lights off hoping that might help (it 
didn't)

Photos of my SVGA screen with the P3:

http://doctorgary.net/rfi-a.jpg

About an hour later it dried out a bit and 
the commuter trains had mostly finished so 
the RFI was less and luckily he was still 
working the pileup & his signal was clear. 
Now that I could hear him Q5, I proceeded 
to call him and eventually did make the Q. 
On the nights the interference lasts, I 
miss most everything that is due to Gray 
line propagation. This was what it was 
like when the arcing lightened up.

http://doctorgary.net/rfi-b.jpg

This is what I have to deal with every 
night & with every SR & SS, kills me in 
the 160M contests too.

I use a HI-Z 8 and a triangular and while 
they are stellar and a must have for me, 
they don't remove this interference even 
though they have great nulling abilities. 
I've been leaning towards one of the NCC 
units, either the NCC-1 or the NCC-2. It 
looks like one of the big selling features 
of the NCC-2 is the inclusion of the RTR-1 
internally which is a receive antenna 
interface & which I don't need with either 
the K3s or my backup K3. 

Other than this feature, is there any real 
difference between the function or quality 
between the NCC-1 vs NCC-2? They've raised 
the price of the NCC-2 to where I'm not 
likely to buy it and will wait till one 
comes up for sale in the used market. If 
the NCC-1 is just as good, then I'll go 
that route & get a NOS or good used one.

Thoughts on whether the NCC-2 is any real 
benefit to me VS the NCC-1?

73,

Gary
KA1J