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Tower's up...

W

Whiplash-265

Active Member
Aug 14, 2011
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Ontario, Canada
so i finally got the tower up New Years Eve day...and survived it :)

A99 w/gpk on
question regarding a coaxchoke...will it reduce the noise level at the radio? both bases just seem a lot noisier than the mobile. Seems much harder to decipher voices...or are the rci radios just naturally magnets for hiss

thanx
 

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Whiplash-265 said:
question regarding a coaxchoke...will it reduce the noise level at the radio?
Click to expand...

Nope!

You need to:

1.) Check for noise around the house. Shut off all the breakers and run the radio off a battery if possible. Then flip on the breakers one by one. If the noise level goes up, isolate the device that is causing it.

2.) An RF ground. You need a wide, thick ground for this. Braided or flat tape copper is best. This needs to be tied to a ground rod outside. The run needs to be as short as possible. All radio related equipment needs to be tied to this ground.

3.) Check for noise outside the house. Neighbors using non-FCC accepted equipment? Power line noise?
 
a99's are not quiet antennas, the higher the antenna to a certain point the more noise it is exposed to.

If you were another wave length higher there may be no noise but there may be twice the noise also.

Crap shoot so you should track down any offending interference.

With this "hiss" do you have any s-unit level on the radio meter? some hiss is normal and pulling back on the rf gain knob may help.
 
Nice work. My experience with the A99 was noise 6dB over dipole for my place. Needless to say it didn't stay up for very long.
The second story door, to your radio shack??
 
much thanks for the replies guys :)

i didn't even think about grounding the equipment...duh, where was my brain. I'll run a stretch of 8ga. through the wall when i do the coax. I'm waiting to get the arrestor box set up before doing that to save on cutting coax multiple times.

Very possibly power/cable/phone line noise. The pic doesn't show it but it runs along the front of the house about 50' away from the a99. All on poles, all roughly same height as antenna. S-units right now are sitting at 4 with the gain maxxed. I've tried turning it down but then i start to lose the distant dx signals.

binrat, ya that be the shack and office :)

again, thanks guys
 
Last edited:
the FIRST thing you need to do, is to determine if the noise is being recieved THRU the antenna.

disconnect the coax @ the radio and see if the offending noise is reduced, it may be on the AC main or from another rf source inside your house.
 
hookedon6

gave that a shot and although greatly reduced (0 on the meter w/RFgain full up) it's definitely still there. Will try disabling my wifi see if that affects things.
I don't have anything turned on except the wifi and the fridge. i did have all the electrical done when i bought the place little over a year ago...went from knob & tube to new so everything is up to code.

thanx :)
 
already mentioned earlier but no notice to it
the antron is a noisey antenna
might look into a metal antenna
 
binrat said:
Nice work. My experience with the A99 was noise 6dB over dipole for my place. Needless to say it didn't stay up for very long.
The second story door, to your radio shack??
Click to expand...

And what polarization is the dipole compared to the Antron you had
 
Whiplash-265 said:
so i finally got the tower up New Years Eve day...and survived it :)

A99 w/gpk on
question regarding a coaxchoke...will it reduce the noise level at the radio? both bases just seem a lot noisier than the mobile. Seems much harder to decipher voices...or are the rci radios just naturally magnets for hiss

thanx
Click to expand...

My RCI's have always had a lot of white noise or 'hiss'.
If you tried the method of turning off all of the circuit breakers and then ran the radio off of a battery temporarily and nothing changed; then it is probably the radio. Or local noise generated from power poles or neighbors using generating noise. Try another radio if you have one. Compare. If you have a radio in your car, what happens to the noise level when you drive away from the city limits? Does the noise go away?
 
555, it's the vert for now but eventually i'd love to get a beam up once i build or buy one :) Have a nice plan sitting here for a 3 element lfa

Robb..neither the 85 or 95 have a 12v connection. Both are reacting the same.
The truck (257hp) doesn't generate anywhere hear the same noise level with everything cranked sitting in the driveway which is surprising since it's supposed to be a sponge for noise lol

Will get a second set of ears up to my place in hopefully next weekend and will do a breaker by breaker run-thru...interim i do have a spare lil wil here ill experiment with.
 
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hmmmmm..i do have power in the garage and the coax should reach too. No where near the wiring issues out there that might possibly be messing with me here.

Lil Wil gives me the same result with radios still located in my shack, so i'm pretty sure i can eliminate antenna/tower/coax.

Will follow up with progress.... Thanx again guys for helping me work thru this!!!
 
alot of "noise" is manmade which is vertical
once you go to a flatside beam alot of noises will stop
 

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