5 May 2018

Topband Noise

Although I can't speak for you, here in rural Cambridgeshire the noise on 160m is probably at least 20dB worse than 10 years ago. To be honest, noise on the lower HF bands is bad and getting worse. Even on the higher bands it is a real problem for some. In many ways I am quite lucky!

If you are lucky enough to live in a quiet part of the world (do they exist?) you might like this simple 160m antenna I used some years ago. It worked remarkably well.

See https://sites.google.com/site/g3xbmqrp3/antennas/160m_loft_ant

1 comment:

  1. Noise here in definitely non-rural Manchester is just impossibly high on 160. I built this loop a few years ago and it certainly helped on receive: https://adventures-with-jj.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/24th-january-low-noise-receive-aerial.html

    I'm fairly confident that much of the noise is generated by poorly filtered SMPSUs - plus all the other badly designed modern electronickery that we seem to need these days. I can't see things improving, if anything the noise levels are just going to increase.
    This is really annoying and very sad, Top Band was my introduction to amateur radio in the 1960s and it remains my favourite band. Thank heavens for Hack Green!

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