Life in the big city
As many of you already know, I recently moved from the beautiful outskirts of town, into the big city of Port Angeles. Ok, it really isn't THAT big (pop. 19,000+) but after ten years of living in Joyce 20 miles West of town, that is humongous.
Well, after a month or so of getting
everything in order after a big move across the county, I finally
decided to put up an antenna and get on the HF bands. I was getting
to the point that I was hearing Morse code in my sleep and dreaming
of exotic DX contacts from all over the world, so I figured it was
probably time to get back on the HF bands.
The noise is all in your head.
After putting the Cushcraft R5
vertical up on a short 10 ft pole off the balcony I was instantly
awarded with a full S9 of signals on EVERY band from 10M to 20M. The
bad part was most of it was coming from the power transformer out
back in the alleyway. OK, no problem. At least the DVR flipped
through channels as I transmitted CW. I can just imagine how happy
the neighbors were that I was changing channels for them every second
or so. SIGH.
Bigger isn't always better.
OK, time to whip out the 35ft
telescoping mast of HF badness. Me and my son Anthony fought with
that darn pole most of the afternoon, and was finally able to get
most of it to pull apart (28ft) after covering the pole and ourselves
with used motor oil. No worries, it is still higher than the power
lines out back, and should eliminate a good portion of the RFI my
receiver was picking up, right?
Oh heck no. Now when I transmit the
house lights blink, and the TV's shut on and off in beautiful Morse
code rhythm. I seem to have set up system for the hearing impaired.
When all else fails.
And before you mention all the
troubleshooting techniques, rest assured that I have already killed
the power to the house from the breaker box and ran the radio on a
car battery, with no change in noise. I also went out back into the
alley and beat on the power poles till the neighbors called the cops
on me. Something about a middle aged man in black, aggressively
beating on the poles with a hatchet. The police department has no
sense of humor at all...
Time to take it to the wire.
At this point in the game, my options
are looking like it is time to break out a multiband dipole of some
sort. I had really good luck before with a 20M Extended Double Zepp
on 40M to 10M. The biggest issue would be whether the lot my house is
on would be big enough. The other issue would be getting both ends of
the antenna up high enough for it to be effective. Another option
would be to set up a separate receive antenna of some sort. The K9AY
array is supposed to be an excellent choice, and I have all the
switching equipment here already. Just a matter of getting that damn
telescoping pole to pull apart the other 7 feet that I need to set it
up.
Sure, I could call and whine to the
power company, but not sure how far I would get with that.