On 9/5/2012 1:01 PM, Bob Dobbs wrote:
Kevin Alfred Strom wrote:
On 9/5/2012 3:49 AM, Bob Dobbs wrote:
Kevin Alfred Strom wrote:

For best results, listen on a high fidelity set of speakers or
headphones:

Wouldn't a noise blanker eliminate some of the static crashes?



There are two noise blankers in the software, but I have never had
much liking for them (or any noise blanker). They do okay with
impulse noise, such as from nearby engine ignition systems, at the
cost of some distortion. But thunderstorm static doesn't have a fast
enough rise time to be much affected by them, in my experience.

All the best,


Kevin, WB4AIO.

The blankers I've had experience with have all had threshold adjustments to keep
them from misinterpreting voice for static and creating distortion. As to
lightning crashes and their static, I thought the rise time was about as fast as
anything, certainly fast enough for a blanker to act upon. The plasma noise I
get here in the inner-city from arcing poke hardware is the most difficult and
occasionally I've had luck using a canceling arrangement with a separate
antenna. (ANC-1) Of course the neighbor's compact fluorescent porch bulbs
generate quite a bit of QRN as well.




The ANC-1 is something I'd like to try, once I save up enough pennies.

Based on what you said, I'll try some more experimentation with the
two blankers in PowerSDR.

One thing I've definitely noticed: The last few decades have seen a
very noticeable rise in the noise floor, particularly below 10 MHz.
I blame the proliferation of badly-filtered consumer electronic
devices (which the FCC could have done something about but didn't),
especially switching power supplies which, even when you can't
detect the buzzies from any specific one, just generally raise the
broadband hash level unless you live thousands of feet from the
nearest building. Even at an isolated location, they in their tens
of millions raise the hash level whenever there is any skywave
propagation at all.

Oh well, at least we don't have those power line networking
monstrosities they suffer from in Britain.


73,


Kevin, WB4AIO.

--
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