Drying Out

[C2]

I think my HF rig is starting to dry out. I did not hear much of anything this last weekend, but I blame the antenna, excpet for 10-meter, which was absolutely dead.

Anyway, there are several sections of spectrum where I hear a loud whistling noise, which varies in pitch and scratchyness with the turn of the dial.

I'm using an old IC-710, with the 100 Hz tuning steps. One step is quiet, the next squeels like a whistling tea kettle, the next changes pitch, another step sounds a bit like one of those classic whistlers...this is an SSB mode. it is not the same as a systematic change in a clear pitch that you'd hear with an AM carrier.

 

[C2]

ok, maybe I should hook up a low-level noise generator and see if the stuff is being generated internally by the radio or if there are some some interesting broadcasts going on the airwaves.

Some of them just sound like a record being turned back and forth randomly on a player.

 

[dxhound]

I know conditions have been really funny the past few days. Alot of heterodyning and spurious emissions. One second the band is open and like a switch its dead again. I was talking to a felow in Argentina on 27.400 usb and as he was talking in a matter of 10 seconds he went from 5/9 10 over to gone never to return. But I have been hearing alot of what you described.