Topband: QRP on 160?

[Jim Brown]

On 7/5/2024 3:00 PM, Roger Kennedy wrote:
> I operate 160m mobile, and it's really depressing driving around. There is a
> general noise level of S7 everywhere . . . only when you get about 10 miles
> from any town or power line does it drop to about S3

And remember that S-meters are simply a voltmeter, caiibrated (with 
wildly variable accuracy) to the voltage at the RX input. It provides 
nothing more than a RELATIVE idea of one signal's strength compared to 
another, but it tells us NOTHING about the actual strength of these 
signals (or the noise) because the radio knows nothing about how that 
voltage relates to the actual field strength (that is, how efficient it 
is). I would expect the efficiency of a 160M mobile whip to be quite 
low, so the actual noise is likely to be MUCH stronger than S7 received 
by a decent fixed antenna.

73, Jim K9YC