Coax Location Issue

[flintstone mop]

Another idea would be if someone was willing to let you use their station "online". There is some popularity to this concept and very expensive to "RENT" a super Ham station.
Reality check:
What software is available to operate a station online? Can Skype be used? Maybe a member on AMFONE could lend the use of his/her station and let you play radio.
Fred

[n3lrx]

 The building as far as I know is of wood frame construction. It's situated so that my apt. is facing north so off the dipole I get north, and south and for some reason very little from off the ends to the east, and west.

 The only 2 bands I have is 160 and 80. I don't have anything else for now. The mag loops I've seen for 80m are way too big to fit in my available space.

  I'm saving up for a modern mobile all band/all mode rig I can operate from the car and home. Hopefully then I can get on 40, 20, and beyond.

 I'm pretty much convinced that getting on the air from here on 75 is going to be impossible. I get weak signals on receive and high SWR on transmit. An all around bad situation. I had written off 160 a long time ago. That is absolutely impossible from an apartment unless management lets you put up an antenna. If I were allowed to set up an antenna I'd go for a sloper or end fed zepp but that's not permitted here.

I'm just going to have to wait until a better solution arises that's all there is to it.

[Pete, WA2CWA]

The Icom IC-718 all band multi-mode 100 watt rig is selling now in the mid $600 range. Great rig for home, maybe a little big for mobile, but that's what the passenger seat is for.

[n3lrx]

Cool, thanks that's a sharp looking radio. I was considering something like a Yaseu 857D, that is in the $800's range but sometimes on sale for $700's. The 857D has buttons that do a million things though. The IC-718 looks much more straight forward.

[Pete, WA2CWA]

Cool, thanks that's a sharp looking radio. I was considering something like a Yaseu 857D, that is in the $800's range but sometimes on sale for $700's. The 857D has buttons that do a million things though. The IC-718 looks much more straight forward.

More IC-718 info:
http://amfone.net/Amforum/index.php?topic=6017.0

http://amfone.net/Amforum/index.php?topic=35466.0

[K3ZS]

My only modern transceiver is an IC-718.   By itself, it is not a good choice.   It can be made into a good transceiver if:

1.  Add the high accuracy frequency module and while apart, retune it to  20 MHz WWV after a few minutes.
2.  Jumper the receiver AGC for the longer AM time constant, to eliminate pumping on SSB.
3.  Jumper the frequency limit diodes so it can transmit on all frequencies to allow 60M use,  add the 60M channels to the memories.
4.  Add narrow band CW filter if you want that mode.

By the time you have paid for these mods, you could get a more up-to-date ICOM transceiver for the same price.

[K3ZS]

Check out IC-7200 instead.

[n3lrx]

Well, I put 50' in line. I took just enough to get to the tuner off one end and just enough to get to the antenna from the other end and left the rest coiled up and ziptied it. With the tuner that brought my SWR down to 1.2:1 Surprisingly enough it also brought the noise down some more. I'm hoping my receive is better too with reduced noise. I hope it didn't drop the wanted signals too..

[Pete, WA2CWA]

Coax and antenna tuners don't know the difference between noise and actual stations.

[n3lrx]

I realize that, but the first choke I put on did drop the noise without much sacrifice in desired signals. There certainly is a lot more noise on the curtain rod almost 2 s units, less signal too. So the hamsticks are doing something.

[K1JJ]

There could be a coupla reasons why your local noise dropped off and desired signals stayed strong...

There could be some computer or other digital noise coming from the apartment building. You may have altered the antenna directional pattern (by chance) and nulled out the unwanted noise.  Or maybe the coax feedline was better canceling out the unwanted shield currents and thus dropped the local noise.  Hard to say.

If your antenna is like mine, by unscrewing the PL-259, disconnecting the shield and leaving the center pin in will bring up the house digital noise so that it drowns out the on-air signals.   Having a well balanced antenna isolated 300' away from the house in the field makes a huge difference on receive.

And by selecting a different antenna, I can sometimes bring up the local digital noise, depending on the direction. For example, if I beam to the south, there is a neighborhood in that direction that gives me an S7 on 75M. It is comprised of both AC line and digital crud. In other directions it is quiet.

T

[n3lrx]

 Well something definitely happened because now I'm hearing a bunch of voices I've never heard before. Still no super strapping signals, i.e. +20 and above, but the noise has definitely dropped and the desired signals can be heard through what's left.

 Still lots of fading, but I'm hearing a lot of 4 land signals. But it never fails the station falls off into the mud just as he's ID'ing. I only had about s5 peak on these guys, but considering that's where my noise floor used to be before I added these chokes. The noise has dropped down to S2-S3.

 Ft. Knox, KY.was booming in, but he faded on the suffix of his call every time. He's only running 75w and peaked out at S7 here in southwest MIch.

 Oh well, enough babble,

[Pete, WA2CWA]

Summertime static and noise has dropped somewhat over the last several days from what it was several weeks ago. The current lightning map also shows a lot less activity from what it was several weeks ago.