bpnjensen wrote:
Ron Hardin wrote:
Just swap the noise and main antennas

Hey, Ron, does the ANC model provide a switch to accomplish this? The
MFJ does not, and that's my main gripe about that unit (I am going to
install a switch one of these days...)

Thanks,
Bruce
******


Bruce,

It is well worth the effort to have a switch in place that will swap the
imputs. I had one put in when I had the unit modified. My biggest gripe
about the 1026 is the darn jumper! I like to change the jumper
connection but you need to open the unit to do it.

JB

John Barnard wrote:

Bob Dobbs EC42 wrote:
On Wed, 06 Sep 2006 20:13:21 +0000, John Barnard wrote:

Maybe it is a QC issue with MFJ? They seem to be notorious for somewhat
unreliable and variable QC.

That QC notoriety is so predictably reinforced that I choose to never
repeat my experiences with it. This includes the products of the newly
acquired Ameritron division too.



I currently have 5 different MFJ products and cannot claim any fault
on any of those items; they all do what they are supposed and do it
well. I did have an MFJ analogue audio processor which I sold when I
picked up a MFJ DSP unit. My overall experience has been positive but I
have certainly read enough to realize that there are problems with MFJ.

Thanks for the heads up on the Ameritron acquisition; I didn't notice
that MFJ acquired that company.

They acquired Ameritron quite some time ago, mid to late 90's perhaps.

dxAce
Michigan
USA

dxAce wrote:

John Barnard wrote:

Bob Dobbs EC42 wrote:
On Wed, 06 Sep 2006 20:13:21 +0000, John Barnard wrote:

Maybe it is a QC issue with MFJ? They seem to be notorious for somewhat
unreliable and variable QC.
That QC notoriety is so predictably reinforced that I choose to never
repeat my experiences with it. This includes the products of the newly
acquired Ameritron division too.



I currently have 5 different MFJ products and cannot claim any fault
on any of those items; they all do what they are supposed and do it
well. I did have an MFJ analogue audio processor which I sold when I
picked up a MFJ DSP unit. My overall experience has been positive but I
have certainly read enough to realize that there are problems with MFJ.

Thanks for the heads up on the Ameritron acquisition; I didn't notice
that MFJ acquired that company.

They acquired Ameritron quite some time ago, mid to late 90's perhaps.

dxAce
Michigan
USA



Thanks for the info! 20+ years - no wonder I didn't remember seeing it!

JB

John Barnard wrote:
bpnjensen wrote:
Ron Hardin wrote:
Just swap the noise and main antennas

Hey, Ron, does the ANC model provide a switch to accomplish this? The
MFJ does not, and that's my main gripe about that unit (I am going to
install a switch one of these days...)

Thanks,
Bruce
******


Bruce,

It is well worth the effort to have a switch in place that will swap the
imputs. I had one put in when I had the unit modified. My biggest gripe
about the 1026 is the darn jumper! I like to change the jumper
connection but you need to open the unit to do it.

JB

Seems like a switch ought to be able to solve that problem too, right?
Either that, or leave the darned lid off! I find that for my purposes,
I can leave the jumper in one position (I don't use that little whip
antenna that it came with).

BJ

John Barnard wrote:

My cat likes to listen to the radio with me and he's bound to poke his
nose into the unit if I were to leave the lid off. The results could be
amusing ;-) I suppose that I could just leave the lid sitting there but
he'd find a way to knock it off ;-),

Duct tape? ;-)

BJ

Today I discovered that one of those little RF Systems mini-windom
antennas makes an awesome noise antenna for the ANC-4. It works better
in this role than any of the random wires I was using.

Steve

Telamon wrote:
In article . com,
"Steve" wrote:

Bob Dobbs EC42 wrote:
On Wed, 06 Sep 2006 17:45:13 -0700, Steve wrote:

've been experimenting some more with the ANC-4 / H-800 combination. I
now have the H-800 situated in a nice spot outdoors, and have noticed
something odd when it comes to eliminating noise. As soon as I turn on
the ANC-4, using the H-800 as the noise antenna, the noise is often
already minimized. For example, the noise level might immediately drop
from S6 to S3, and adjusting the noise gain and noise phase controls
will have little effect (good or bad) on this S3 noise level. This
doesn't happen everytime, but it happens a lot...most of the time.

If I then use a wire as my noise antenna, the noise level might drop one
or two S units as soon as I turn the ANC-4 on, but it takes some knob
twiddling to get the noise level down to the S3 reading that I get
automatically and immediately when using the H-800. And the best result
using the wire is always the *same* as the result I get straight away
using the H-800. Always.

I've puzzled over why this is. I think it must have something to do with
the fact that the H-800 has quite a bit more gain than the wire, making
it a better 'match' for the main antenna...which means a lot of the work
is done for me? This is just a guess.

You'll have to evaluate which provides the better NR;
the reduction from the loops null,
or the null from the inverse phasing.
If the loop is alredady nulling the noise source then it might not be
providing adequate noise signal to the ANC-4 for its inversion process,
in which case you might try peaking the loops noise signal.


--

Echo Charlie 42
San Diego, California

I don't think the problem is due to the orientation of the loop because
we're talking about something that happens all the time and not just in
relation to one or two particular signals. I'm just about convinced
that the H-800 is simply providing more signal than the ANC-4 can
handle. I haven't tried any form of attenuation yet, but am thinking
about how to arrange that.

You can build an attenuator of any value with three resistors in a metal
box with two appropriate connectors.

--
Telamon
Ventura, California

If you go inside the case of the ANC-4, it has a jumper you can adjust
that "places a high pass filter with at least 50 dB attenuation in the
stop band in series with the noise antenna." This is a pretty darned
neat feature, in my opinion. It doesn't make the H-800 work any better
as a noise antenna, but it does make some of the wires work a bit
better. Very nice.

With the high pass filter in series, I find that I more often get the
deepest nulls with the frequency range button in the "out" position,
even though this is, in theory, the position it should be in for
frequencies above 20 mhz. I'm not sure why this came about, but oh
well.

Steve
Steve