Heavy Metal Rally Rules?

[WD8BIL]

Nice signal on 160M last nite, Rob.

I hope you find your noise source soon. With the snow and wind that we got last nite there'll be plenty of time to play radio this weekend!

[K5UJ]

Thanks Budley; you're right about the wx!   I worked Mike CVY until around 9:30 local time and condx improved and I futzed with the antennas and wound up with a solid signal from him so IOW things got better and I hated to shut 'er down but had to for work today. 

I have a noise problem (two actually) on that band and one of them only appears on one antenna, which defeats the way the noise cancelling system works.  In order for it to work right, it has to have the same noise on two antennas; then they can be set to equal amplitude and one shifted 180 degrees so they cancel out.  so I have a second noise box but I have to put up a pair of small rx antennas that both get the same noise.

Man, the doo doo you have to go through if you live in town these days.

One funny thing I have noticed is that I can get all tuned up on some frequency like 1880 and there's nothing there.  So I call CQ and as soon as I go to rx, there's a switching supply or something right there giving me noise.  It seems like my RF sends a signal to these things to hop to my frequency.

[k4kyv]

Man, the doo doo you have to go through if you live in town these days.

I was talking with someone on the air last night, who said that a lady living near him (about 1/3 mile away), has a plasma TV that wipes out the entire HF spectrum at his location when it's on. He has been trying to convince her to upgrade to a better LCD/LED TV with all the latest bells & whistles, but may attempt to get an FCC letter if she doesn't cooperate. He has already communicated with her, and the instruction manual that came with her TV has a warning notice that it must not interfere with licensed radio services.

So far, I have been lucky not to have that problem.  There are some advantages to living out in the sticks, surrounded by people who probably couldn't afford a big-screen TV of any kind.

[K5UJ]

I think you need a minimum of 500 feet of buffer zone to keep this garbage RFI at bay.   A lot of the radiation from these noise sources doesn't carry very far (unless it is conducted on wiring and I have heard of hams buying 10 material 33 snap on cores big enough to fit around an AC service drop, and using them out on the line to try to filter conducted noise).  Actually if you can just get your antennas out away from other people that is usually good enough.  with plasma TVs it is the screen itself that actually radiates.  There's nothing that can be done about them other than replace them.  We'll probably never know how many hams have quit operating on account of the noise.   

The noise problem has had the affect on me of making me no longer give a flip if I get into someone's stereo or computer speakers or phone.  I know their garbage makes me far more miserable than my occasional operating does to them.  Their junk is on all the time.   If anyone ever bitched to me I'd tell them join the club, and let them listen to what I have to put up with.

[Bill, KD0HG]

You guys never lived in a redneck town where people abused a lot of alcohol at a local biker bar and a bad attitude about RFI on their phones. I didn't much care for people beating on my door at 2 AM. LOL

Anyway, plasma TVs are on the way out. I don't know if they even still sell them.

Bill

[Pete, WA2CWA]

Anyway, plasma TVs are on the way out. I don't know if they even still sell them.

Bill

Panasonic is still pushing their line:
http://shop.panasonic.com/shop/viera-televisions-viera-plasma-hdtvs
And so is Samsung:
http://www.samsung.com/us/video/plasma-tv