On Jan 3, 11:30*pm, dave wrote:
On 01/05/2011 01:21 AM, bpnjensen wrote:

On Jan 3, 4:32 pm, *wrote:

I have plenty of sensitivity - my biggest problem by far is RFI from
nearby sources, and it dwarfs any loss issues. *Ideally, I would
either put the antennae at an illegally high elevation above the power
lines, or buy a new rural lot - neither of which is workable at this
moment.

I've done killer DXing in the heart of big cities. Have you tried
running down the interference sources one by one? The mere presence of
power lines shouldn't automatically indicate a lousy location.

I live cheek-to-jowl in a tight suburban neighborhood. I have the two
power lines front and back; PCs and fancy TVs in all neighbor's
houses; crackling streetlights; buzzing halogen porchlights; and etc.
An industrial park begins about 300 feet away across an active RR
track. I have three blowtorch AM transmitters located within a few
miles of here on the same sal****er bay plain where I am. I could
spend days tracking down the problems (and once or twice have done
so), only to find that some cannot be readily eliminated.

I have "heard" some tiny flea power stations and have logs and even
QSLs to prove it - but by and large, the noise level is onerous and on
the lower bands loud enough to obscure all but the loudest stations.

I know dang well that if I can get the radio and antenna away from
this crapola - the beach 50 miles away, for example, or out to one of
my astronomy sites - the problems largely disappear. This
neighborhood is a disaster.

The best thing I can do is get that wire up as high as legally
possible, and then if necessary turn on the attenuators.