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About how far will a palomar amp bother neighbors?

cjruger

Active Member
Aug 13, 2012
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Just curious, im looking at one and closest neighbor is about 150yards away, its a palomar 250, about 10 years old
 

depends on just how trashy your radios transmit is...audio limiters cut,coils spread and so forth....


But I would say chances are really good your neighbors will be getting some rfi from you
 
Your concern for your neighbor is the mark of a good radio operator.

There are many variables that will determine how much you bother your neighbors and volumes have been written about the cause and cure of RFI.

Much depends on how you have your station set up, what type antenna you are using and where it is located relative to the neighbors home. Much more depends on what devices the neighbor has. Since the advent of cable and satellite TV, TVI problems are mostly a thing of the past, but you might still be heard on the neighbors radio, cordless phone, wireless headsets or their toaster.

My advice would be to ground everything at your end and be proactive with your neighbor. Go to them and ask if you are causing interference. If you are then you can take steps to correct it. It's better for you to go to them before they come to you, or worse yet make a phone call to the FCC.

In my experience 200 watts on a properly set up base shouldn't cause any problems to someone 150 yards away, but that doesn't mean it can't happen.
 
Thanks for the reply, my neighbor is cool anyway,im running a half wave dipole on my roof horizontal, the end is pointing to him, i know he hangs out in his garage and listens to the radio and dont want him have to hear me gabbing over his speakers. It comes right over my little stero in garage, but im 10 ft under antenna. I guess ill just have to ask him. But im not one for causing any kind of annoiance to neighbors, i only have 2 within 150yards.
 
Run the Palomar at 1-2 watts AM drive and 10-12 watts SSB drive keep the audio clean not overdone for like some that (booming sound) LOL!! find a good nonamplified Microphone Astatic 877L desk microphone or a 636L hand microphone or a Shure 514B or a Shure 527C hand microphones or a Shure 444 or 450 desk microphones if desk mic is what you want.

These non amplified can really help keep the over modulation splash hash RF from flying into everything and yet keep your signal clean and tolerable ;)
 
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TOASTER?????

Your concern for your neighbor is the mark of a good radio operator.

There are many variables that will determine how much you bother your neighbors and volumes have been written about the cause and cure of RFI.

Much depends on how you have your station set up, what type antenna you are using and where it is located relative to the neighbors home. Much more depends on what devices the neighbor has. Since the advent of cable and satellite TV, TVI problems are mostly a thing of the past, but you might still be heard on the neighbors radio, cordless phone, wireless headsets or their toaster.

My advice would be to ground everything at your end and be proactive with your neighbor. Go to them and ask if you are causing interference. If you are then you can take steps to correct it. It's better for you to go to them before they come to you, or worse yet make a phone call to the FCC.

In my experience 200 watts on a properly set up base shouldn't cause any problems to someone 150 yards away, but that doesn't mean it can't happen.

How does audio come out of a toaster? I have heard of this but don't understand how this happens.....
 
I run a 2950DX, a four pill mobile, on a power supply, a D-104, and a P. 500 at 36'! I have neighbors on both sides of me. Their houses are fifteen and 25 ft. from mine! Everything is bonded and grounded with clean audio!
I've talked to both sets of neighbors, and they never know when I'm chewing that rag with 300 watts!
Take care when setting up your rig, keep the audio clean, and enjoy.
 
Grounding is a must on the good idea list of things to do. Grounding is good to do for a few reasons but its not always a cure for RF splatter and Ive seen in 2 cases where grounding made it worse ;).

You have to keep in mind its all trial and error in the radio world "what works for one guy may not work for the next wIm sure we have all seen this at one time or another in the radio hobby.

The biggest problem is dirty signals coming from over driven amplifiers and over modulated radios that are being pushed beyond the spectrum. I have seen where the RF was not a problem but the Roger Beep woold be the one thing that would stray into TV's ETC.

Your radio and antenna setup or antenna location is the obvious place to start. The good thoing is most households are nodays running cable or satlite TV which helps out alot. I know some TV;s are still prone to RF no matter what the hell a person does and this is the bad and frustrating for a person.

As far as noise in a toaster Ive seen and heard it all ;) When I was younger I got my fist tube amplifier and it was a 1,500 watt houisehold electronics wrecking crew!! It came through "VERYTHING" The kitchen alone sounded like an amusement park. Which wasnt good because I and my wife were living with my parents at the time because that was when I first started my battle with Cancer.

My dad had just bought this new fancy bigscreen and I was literally wiping it out!! My dad walked into the kitchen after his brandnew TV was going nuts and he then heard his kitchen humming clicking beeping as the lights also flickered. He approach me and told me in these exact words which Ill never forget "If I messed up his new TV in anyway the radio setup would be stuffed up my @$$ aerial and all!!"

Needless to say I talked to my wife about it and figured it would be best if I took the amplifier back to the shop I bought it from and traded it in something else!!! LMAO!!
 
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I used to know a guy that actually could open the garage door next door with 2 kw! He thought it was a hoot and he would purposely do it at all hours of the night just to razz the old guy!!!
 
I used to know a guy that actually could open the garage door next door with 2 kw! He thought it was a hoot and he would purposely do it at all hours of the night just to razz the old guy!!!

Funny you mentioned garage door. An earlier post said not to run clipped modulation resister. Well i was, on a little uniden pro510xl. Got nervous about screwing up neighbors. Attempted to reconnect resister. Keyed up and... My garage door opens. Key again... Closes and so on. Every single time. The resister is back out now
 
IMO, a better mark of a good radio operator would be following the FCC rules regarding power limits and signal quality and not having to worry about disturbing neighbors. :whistle:

Yep; signal quality/integrity.

Funny you mentioned garage door. An earlier post said not to run clipped modulation resister. Well i was, on a little uniden pro510xl. Got nervous about screwing up neighbors. Attempted to reconnect resister. Keyed up and... My garage door opens. Key again... Closes and so on. Every single time. The resister is back out now

So you put the resistor back in and it still was throwing off too many harmonics - so you took it back out?!? Well; once the resistor was back in - did you adjust the modulation pot back down?

Lots of things can contribute to signal splatter. Over-modulation, spreading the coils of the 54mhz trap, cutting the limiter, and over-driving an amplifier. Any one of those - or all of the above . . .
 
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RM ITALY KL-503 AMP

Sorry I can't give a technical answer but my amp does 250 watts DK 300 "RM ITALY KL-503" audio and to my house when in use it will turn on the motion detector lights some times it will knock the picture off while transmitting I have Time Warner cable, It will come out over speakers when they are turned off or on. My radio is a Cobra 148GTL with the audio turned up all the way and one audio limiter clipped. I can not use any power mike's it will squeal. I have recently grounded and ungrounded "if you can believe" some items and it has cleaned a lot of this up. OK now the upside I have very clean audio and loud as all Hell despite what I have done to this beautiful ebay radio I live in the mountains very hard to get out but my wife and I can hear my base '148GTL' extremely clear with less than one pound in either Mobile's while driving. My mobiles are Cobra 29LTD very good ANL and NB hardly ever use squelch because of irritating static. Now I don't really talk a lot but I am also about as far away as you are with my neighbors and for the last couple years no complaints and I have checked to see if I at least turn on their motion detector lights and it doesn't. Now you have a better amp than I do so you should be better off than me. Our situations are similar and should shed some idea what will happen. Just go for it and see what happens they have TVI filters for this potential problems you maybe facing and a lot of people on this site are extremely knowledgeable and will help to no end.
 
Sorry I can't give a technical answer but my amp does 250 watts DK 300 "RM ITALY KL-503" audio and to my house when in use it will turn on the motion detector lights some times it will knock the picture off while transmitting I have Time Warner cable, It will come out over speakers when they are turned off or on. My radio is a Cobra 148GTL with the audio turned up all the way and one audio limiter clipped. I can not use any power mike's it will squeal. I have recently grounded and ungrounded "if you can believe" some items and it has cleaned a lot of this up. OK now the upside I have very clean audio and loud as all Hell despite what I have done to this beautiful ebay radio I live in the mountains very hard to get out but my wife and I can hear my base '148GTL' extremely clear with less than one pound in either Mobile's while driving. My mobiles are Cobra 29LTD very good ANL and NB hardly ever use squelch because of irritating static. Now I don't really talk a lot but I am also about as far away as you are with my neighbors and for the last couple years no complaints and I have checked to see if I at least turn on their motion detector lights and it doesn't. Now you have a better amp than I do so you should be better off than me. Our situations are similar and should shed some idea what will happen. Just go for it and see what happens they have TVI filters for this potential problems you maybe facing and a lot of people on this site are extremely knowledgeable and will help to no end.


You have many problems there if you are trying to run clean. Your clipped and over tuned Cobra 148 is the first place to start. Such a fine radio, have it actually tuned correctly.

Next up a 300 watt carrier from that amp is way too much, you need to drop the AM carrier from the radio until you get about 100 watts.
 

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