"Harold E. Johnson" wrote in
news:ci5Ai.58746$Xa3.26736@attbi_s22:


I used to have an FT-221 tricked out with a hot front end. Solar
noise would run the S meter up to well over the S9 mark and you
could even see the galactic plane passing through the antenna
pattern. Needless to say, it heard well on terrestrial 2m SSB.

That is no mean feat!

You better believe no mean feat! I worked off the moon on 432 MHz back
in the late 70's. Sixteen 16 element Yagis (calculated gain ~26 dB)
and an STA from the FCC to use 5 KW as long as the antennas were
pointed above 25 degrees elevation. (Protecting Eglin radars some 200
plus miles away.)

I could consistently manage some 4, 4-1/2 dB of sun noise off a quiet
sun and not one smidge more even with a mast mounted GaAs Fet preamp
supposedly with some 0.8 dB NF.

I DID however, at around the same time, own a 2 meter Jap all-mode
transceiver that I happened to measure the "S" meter accuracy with an
HP signal generator. It turned out that 2 uVolts was "S"-1. THREE
uVolts was "S"-9.

Yeah, and that just gets worse when you put a decent preamp in front of
it.


--
Dave Oldridge+
ICQ 1800667