[TowerTalk] Tower location and house noise

[Jim Brown]

On Mon,5/22/2017 5:34 PM, Bob Shohet, KQ2M wrote:
> There are many good reasons for locating a tower away from the shack.

Yes, but the better question to ask is, what's the quietest location 
where I CAN put a tower? If, for example, you put the tower far from 
your home but close to your neighbor's, you'll hear their noise better. :)

My primary tower is about 100 ft from my house, 200 ft from my shack, 
and the nearest neighbors are at least 400 ft from it. I've worked very 
hard to kill all my own noise, but it's a never ending battle. :) The 
antennas on that tower are the quietest in my antenna farm, by 3-6 dB. 
But I have 8.5 acres. Few hams have that luxury. And even with that 
buffer between me and neighbors, the solar system 400 ft away at 120 
degrees kills me on 6M during the daylight hours.

Remember that the noise we hear in our receivers is the sum of all the 
trash produced by our own electronics, by those of our neighbors, and 
from strong distant sources like defective power line insulators, street 
lighting, etc. We have the most control of what's in our own homes, so 
my inclination is to stay closer to my own home than to noisy neighbor 
homes.

73, Jim K9YC