Since I upgraded to General I have been experiencing near constant S8 level noise on the 40m band. I’ve also had S5 +/- level nois on 20m. So far I’ve determined that the Samsung refrigerator in the kitchen is a bad RFI source, as well as the usb to serial adapter going from my shack PC to my Kenwood TM-D710A TNC which I use for the APRS iGate.
I’ve made some progress on the 20m noise levels by making some changes to the coax coming from the OCF dipole attached to the house, but the 40m noise continues unabated. My next steps involve another trip to HRO for some ferrite beads and a MFJ-854 RF Current Meter (Reviewed here). Hopefully these will allow me to find and isolate the worst noise offenders in quick order.
It seems that I need to move my OCF dipole much further away from the house than it currently is. Not entirely sure how to accomplish this quite yet (I live in a neighborhood with covenants) but the lots are reasonably wooded and it is hard to see small wire antennas from the street. This morning the YL told me that she heard some “voices” while she was watching TV last night and I was operating at the same time. I think this lends further proof that the antenna is too close to the house.
More to come as I work through the hunting of the RFI sources and resolving my high noise floor on 40m.
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