Oops, I think I messed up.

[KK4AMI]

Bummer on losing the astronomy too!

That's probably the only thing I miss about Tulelake. There was very little ambient light, so the Meade got a lot of use.

I was kind of expecting astronomy would suck when we decided to move closer to the ocean. The air is more turbulent and humidity is pretty high in North Carolina. I have an old Meade 10" F4.5. I'll just put it in the closet or trade it for a kayak and a fishing rod!

Oops and an MFJ-1026

[K7SGJ]

I was kind of expecting astronomy would suck when we decided to move closer to the ocean. The air is more turbulent and humidity is pretty high in North Carolina. I have an old Meade 10" F4.5. I'll just put it in the closet or trade it for a kayak and a fishing rod!

Oops and an MFJ-1026

I've tried using the MFJ-1026, and didn't like it. It's too hard to keep the worm on.

[kd6nig]

I'd agree with the "it depends" comment.

I know a ham locally that has them roughly 250 yards from his antennas. He lives out on a small ranch and some big towers run between him and his neighbor.

He'll get occasional S2, S3 bursts of static, especially during the first few hours of the first rain of the season, then it will be quiet most of the time.

When he first moved out there though the bursts were more frequent, but not adverse to operating. Then one day he was outside and a helicopter was flying over the lines. About a week later a crew showed up and used his neighbors yard to access the tower. They changed some insulators on it and the noise went to being very sporadic like I described.

So it depends not only on the location, but how well they are maintained, seems like.

I have a lot more noise being in the city than he has. I'd trade his noise for mine in a moment. And mine seems to be ambient....we've had power outages for blocks around and it only goes down an S unit. 20 is the worst, it gets to S8 at times, but usually is around S5.

But then I live within 100 yards of Interstate 5, though we have soundwalls. A lot of it probably comes from that, or the lights along it, or something like that. They seem to stay on when ours go out. Someday if we have a really widespread outage and they go out I will have to test that theory. It doesn't help that I'm very limited on space in my backyard and thus one leg of my dipole is within 10' of my power drop from the pole...but that doesn't seem to be the issue due to my testing. Could be a neighbor growing some Medical MJ for all I know.....

[KG4NEL]

I've tried using the MFJ-1026, and didn't like it. It's too hard to keep the worm on.

Don't drink the worm...

[NQ6U]

I have been told that a firefighter's rule of thumb for judging the voltage on a high voltage transmission line is to count the insulator rings and multiply by 20 to get the voltage in thousands. I don't know how accurate that is so, YMMV.

[WØTKX]

In addition to Jim's comments, look into a noise canceller such as a Timewave ANC-4 or MFJ-1025/1026. I like the -1026 as it allows the use of an external sense antenna.

You mean the "noise antenna"? The ANC-4 has an external connection as well. I had an MFJ-1026 that got killed by a lightning strike. My ANC-4 works just as well, but it is a different animal. However, both of these units have one requirement, make that "sense" or "noise" antenna pick up the noise you want to kill at the right signal strength level to make these devices work. To weak or too strong is no good. Kind of like working with audio inputs on a soundboard, pad all that shit to zero dB. ;)

[kb2vxa]

Don't count your chickens before they hatch. I have more noise in this house all across the spectrum than you can shake a hot stick at but after checking things out with a portable SW receiver I found it limited to the house. There are 13.5KV feeders all over town and a substation a block away all clean, barely a crackle out of the radio from MW to 30MHz. So take it from there and don't be too quick to condemn power lines. Faulty equipment is a well known noise source but first there has to be a fault. If it hisses like a snake it probably is a snake... back away slowly.

[K0RGR]

My house is near the front of a 3/4 acre lot. Right on the south property line is a medium voltage trunk line that feeds the south end of the city. Our utilities are city-owned, and they have been very good about noise suppression.

Before I bought this place, I drove around the neighborhood with my AM radio tuned between stations, listening for noise - none observed. I stood in the kitchen of the house with my FT817 and a piece of wire, and copied Europeans on 40 meters, no problem. Now, I have three HF antennas. There are two dipoles on a pushup mast as high as I can get it over the middle of the house, and the third is a 43' vertical about 100' from the house. The vertical is the quietest antenna of the three. The noise on the other two is from all the consumer electronics and light dimmers in my own house. I've confirmed this by listening on the FT817 while I power off everything one breaker at a time. I think one light dimmer is really to blame, and if I ever get excited enough to care, I'll change it out. With the exception of 80 meters, I never have noise issues, and on 80, I usually don't. If I'm working DX, I switch to the vertical and it's very quiet on all bands, being far from any houses and the power line.

[KK4AMI]

My house is near the front of a 3/4 acre lot. Right on the south property line is a medium voltage trunk line that feeds the south end of the city. Our utilities are city-owned, and they have been very good about noise suppression.

Before I bought this place, I drove around the neighborhood with my AM radio tuned between stations, listening for noise - none observed. I stood in the kitchen of the house with my FT817 and a piece of wire, and copied Europeans on 40 meters, no problem. Now, I have three HF antennas. There are two dipoles on a pushup mast as high as I can get it over the middle of the house, and the third is a 43' vertical about 100' from the house. The vertical is the quietest antenna of the three. The noise on the other two is from all the consumer electronics and light dimmers in my own house. I've confirmed this by listening on the FT817 while I power off everything one breaker at a time. I think one light dimmer is really to blame, and if I ever get excited enough to care, I'll change it out. With the exception of 80 meters, I never have noise issues, and on 80, I usually don't. If I'm working DX, I switch to the vertical and it's very quiet on all bands, being far from any houses and the power line.

We will be downsizing to a 1/2 acre piece of property so putting up a vertical is a strong possibility. Thanks for the ideas and positive thinking, because we really do like the house.

[n0iu]

I like my hobby, but I like my wife more... on most days!