Current Call: AA8IA (since ~1992)
Previous Call: KB8MAZ
Location: East Ohio – Grid EN90QL
Elevation: 1200 ft
Equipment: Yaesu FT-100 w/ narrow CW filter, LDG AT-100Pro autotuner, keying and CAT control interfaces, Bencher paddles, P4 2.8 HT computer.
Antenna(s): 40m dipole in V configuration (V to the east) up 18 feet at tip, sloping downward at ends. Dual-band Cushcraft ringo for 2m/440 @ 20 feet. Single Band ARX2B @ 20 feet for APRS (KC8BUW).
Quite a modest and inefficient setup no doubt. I’ll be working on that over the next year. Often I’ve got S9+20 noise levels thanks to American Electric Power. This usually trashes everything from 160 to 10 m. It also affects weak packet performance as high up as the 2m band. This will be the biggest project of mine, once started, since we all hear about how the power companies like to cooperate with RFI complaints. The FT-100 has a great noise blanker, but when you have 20 over pulsing, it’ll only cut out 10-15 db or so.
I’ve got a lot size of 60×100 and am surrounded by distribution lines on two sides of the property. The proximity to high voltage makes me very leary about having anything with significant height up in the air. I’ve been thinking about a 40 foot tower and a tribander. Although the only location for a tower would mean that any directional antennas on it would extend across to the neighbor’s property. If anybody reads this and you happen to operate in a very similar environment, I’d be interested to hear what you use for an antenna system – especially on receive. No beverage antennas here at AA8IA 