On 10/20/09 12:35 , Bill Baka wrote:
The sun is going through a weird sunspot cycle right now and skip should
be pretty good even during the day. 20 years ago I had a big outside
whip and managed to talk to a guy in Jamaica who was really surprised to
be talking to someone from California. If 2x5 watt ERP radios can do
that the stations still on the air should come in strong.
I give this about 2 posts before someone goes off topic.


Depending on your frequency of choice, you should be able to work
that kind of distance with less than that power. I worked a guy in
North Carolina from Chicago on 1 watt about 20 years ago, on 11
meters. Conditions, time of day all work for or against you.

But 10 and 11 meters can be amazing QRP bands.



Second, I have to mention that those el-cheapo CFL's that Wal-mart is
selling have one hell of an RFI output. I thought my radio had gone down
when I thought to turn off all the CFL's in my house and it got
listen-able. I have an oscilloscope monitoring the audio and the noise
spikes are at 60 Hz and very consistent.


I've noticed some, but not a LOT of noise from CFL's here.
Although, when the noise floor rises, I'm thinking it's from one of
the neighbors' CFL's. My own are pretty quiet.

I bought mine in bulk from HeartlandAmerica.com. The brand is
Green/Shine, made in China and the cost was a little less than $2/ea
in a variety of wattages and lumen outputs. Fairly quiet. Two in the
bathroom downstairs create enough noise that I can't use a radio
there, but they don't seem to radiate enough to get into radios
elsewhere in the building.

But the simple solution is an antenna in a quiet part of the
property, well grounded with a well grounded transmission line.



I think that if someone wanted to get into their radio it would be a
small matter to put a line synced blank pulse when needed.

Interesting thought. I've had some pretty decent results with
some noise blankers, depending on the receiver. But a blank pulse,
not tried that.

I'll give that a look.




Anyone?
No politics.


You're no fun.