hf rig noise

[dirtyjob]

ok i have a few radios and antennas i use daily for base operations, i have noticed that when i have a cb hooked up to any of my antennas "ofc windom/ spt500/3 element gizmotchy" they run normally with little backround noise as they should during normal conditions.. However, if i use any of my hf rigs such as say my kenwood 870s, with my spt500 or 3 element gizmotchy i get 9 s units of static, but if i hook the hf rigs up to the ofc windom dipole it goes away.

My question is why do the other 2 antennas give me so much noise and the windom does not ?

P.S. Sometimes, not as often as i would like, the 9 s units of noise is not there.

[MDYoungblood]

Probably polarity, do you get the S9 on the horizontal side of the beam? That is a very high noise level, I would be searching out what's causing it, mother natural rarely gets that high.

3's

Greg

[231]

Greg might be right...it could be something as simple as polarity issue. But it sounds like you are running the Pre-Amp on the TS-870? If so, shut it off. I never run Pre-amps as all they do is amplify noise. If you need to pull stations out from the noise invest in a Times Wave ANC-4 noise phaser (or the MFJ version). They really do work.

Are you running any odd wall warts with the Kenwood by chance or move it close to say a USB hub on your comuputer? Are you sure it's actually the antenna(s) causing the noise? Lost more questions than answers...sorry.

231

[Bozo]

Great answer Larry

Posted from the Bozo Phone
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[Slim Pickins]

I quieted an S9 noise from my HF rig by moving the antenna rotator control further from it. I think the transformer was causing the interference. I didn't have it on my tube rig but it was torture on my iCom.

[Deleted User 14541]

On 10 &11 meter AM the noise bkanker/anl in my CBs seem to be better than my kenwood ts440 and yaesu 1200. The yaesu is alot quieter than the kenwood but sometimes I still get electrical noise that isn't there with a 148.

[pabxone]

Try temporarily patching thru a hard earth from a reliable earthing point on to the metal chassis of the radio.

Try to pick up a nice clean earth from the closest metal water pipe that heads off into the ground that also preferably doesn't have a bonding connection to the buildings MEN earth cable running back into the buildings mains power earthing.

Even an old piece of galvanized iron or copper water pipe hammered 4ft or so into the ground would be a good enough earth for a test to see what effect it has.

If that fixes it a single stainless steel earthing rod (2 rods will be needed most likely if you have sandy soil) with a 16mm earth cable back to the radio with a proper earth clamp at the rod end and a decent eyelet connector at the radio end should be the fix.

If that's still no better - If you have any lightning protection at the mast - try temporarily disconnecting that to see if it has any effect (Possible corrosion in the lightning arrestor , corrosion / LIR in the plugs or sockets , blown arrestor from a lightning strike and/or poor earth (Even foreign earth relative to the earth reference at the radio) at the arrestor.

Try temporarily hard earthing the mast from the same hard earthing point as before (Even try this if the antenna is a supposedly "Ground independent" variety)

Try also powering the equipment off a battery only - even a low current gel cell for a short RX only noise test - noise could be traveling back thru the mains supply , building cabling and/or internally generated within a power supply.

73
Mark