My Week in Radio
- launched the newly-tuned slim-jim antenna
- tuned the antenna, soldered in a bit more wire at the top
- hung right below my quarter-wave
- compared both antennas simultaneously with the 2 quansheng HTs with dBm measurements
- lower antenna is for the Btech radio running APRS
- upper antenna for general scanning and local
- learned about 900MHz radio at the SPARC meeting
- learned about satellite work at 21 lunch in Harrisburg
- had the thru-window cable flake out during check-in
Questions
- W3JAM, Jeff:
- Has anyone used delving or divining rods for finding water or power lines?
- KC3WWC, John:
- Tried it as a kid with copper wire rods to find water and wires around the house.
- Seemed much like the Ouija board with wires. Probably just recognized it.
- KC3OOK, Bill: Had some well drillers do it, but seemed like part of the show.
- WA3VEE, Ron:
- Can’t see how it would work, especially a wooden stick.
- Would need quite the field to cause movements in the wire
- Probably easier to attribute it to minute recognitions of the douser.
- KC3SQI, Wayne:
- Has known dousers for water to use Green Willow Stick.
- N3OGF, John:
- His Dad doused for water lots of times.
- W1RC, Mike:
- There’s a Dousers Convention in Vermont.
- KC3OOK, Bill:
- His well is 300 ft down.
- Water doesn’t really “flow” underground.
- NA3CW, Chuck:
- Knew a custom home builder who was a douser.
- If you drilled somewhere else, would there still have been water?
- Stick would rotate up and back toward him near the water line.
- Sister tried it and felt it, even though she may have tried to fight the movement.
- W3JAM, Jeff:
- Read an article, and he’s trying to find a conductor.
- Doesn’t think it’ll work.
- KC3MAI, Joe:
- QRM, HF Noise on low bands.
- S5 noise on 40m
- S3 on 80M and 160M
- Is a certain amount of noise to be expected? Can it be remediated?
- WA3VEE, Ron:
- QRM vs QRN: man-made vs natural
- Static from lightning
- Static from wind
- Solar panel noise
- Man-made noise can be fixed if it’s in your house
- Try running off battery
- Eliminate electrical things to see if anything fixes it
- Cut the whole breaker
- A dead short across the antenna may still see noise: thermal noise
- noise floor
- Neighborhood noise might be hard to remediate.
- NA3CW, Chuck:
- Has nearby PECO, appliances, Amtrak
- Searched and found bad wall wart power supplies
- Neighborhood plasma TV that growls on 75M
- Has tracked down bad power line hardware
- KC3MAI, Joe:
- Has several Rokus that might have unclean power supplies.
- KC3KFT, John:
- Pole insulators on power lines can arc depending on weather, humidity, contamination.
- 6M AM is a good band/mode for searching for noise also 2M AM.
- Hit the pole with a sledge hammer to see if the noise changes
- WA3VEE, Ron:
- Crackling on hot humid nights near high voltage lines.
- Wide-band spark
- Every wire is an antenna, so could be an emitter.
- CFL or LED lights
- KD3ZIM, Bob:
- Had a noise problem several years ago.
- Called PECO, suspecting power line noise.
- PECO traced the noise and fixed it.
- cool receivers and spectrum analyzers
- checked his scope in his shack and got started.
- found the line 100-150yds from the house
- heard the buzzing like welding.
- cracked insulator on the pole
- NA3CW, Chuck:
- AM transistor radio is a good sensor for the noise
- W3GMS, Joe, has some experience working with PECO
- KB3ZIM, Bob:
- Call PECO or Bob or Joe to get Dennis from PECO to do the search.
- Power lines can carry the “transmission” miles
- KC3WWC, John:
- I’ve seen videos on Youtube of people searching
- Electric company is responsible for cleaning up those emissions
- You can build a tape-measure yagi for searching
- POTA can be low noise area
- Hear and see the crackles of very distant lightning.
- Check the radio power supply
- QRM, HF Noise on low bands.