When I trained as a Marconi RO (1969) the standard practice to reduce noise in a receiver was to reduce the RF Gain and to advance the Audio Gain sufficient for good audio reception, then use your RF Gain as your main Gain. Also if you suffer from static build up on your vertical you can use a 1meg resistor between the antenna and ground to bleed off the static. My vertical antenna is a GAP TITAN DX which I find great and its a very quiet antenna static-wise. I run my IC-7200 with the RF Gain way down and my Audio Gain to around 3 o'clock and use my RF Gain as my main Gain, either increasing or decreasing it when necessary which makes for a very quiet receive Great video. 73 de Ger EI6DP
I'm very new to HAM and I was advised to crank the RF gain all the way up first. I'm literally reading this at 05:30 in the morning, I just fired up my IC-705 to try AF first, then RF gain and worked fantastically! The only thing that I had to tweak was the DB "REF" on the waterfall as mine was previously set to a permanent+20 dB. Thanks so much EI6DP! 73 de GB, M7VOK
Thanks for the report. If you would desire the same low noise on multiple bands: consider replacing your dipole with a horizontal loop skywire antenna for both transmit and receive....you would need to use a tuner for each band change, but you would get great performance. Just 275 feet of wire will get you 80 through 10 meters.
If you put the dipole in an inverted V config, just raising it up in the middle , it will still be quieter than vertical but also good for transmit too, give it a try
You also get isolation from having a vertically polarized antenna and a horizontally polarized one. There can be as much as a 30 dB difference between horizontal and vertical polarization. I have severe noise problems at my downtown location, often over S-9 with a vertical, so I built a high Q tunable mag-loop for receive. I also use it for QRP transmit, though it's not designed to handle power. Over-all, if I was only allowed 1 antenna it would be a high-Q tunable mag-loop. It's small. It doesn't need to be tall, no guying or counterpoise requirements, and it's fairly quiet, (quieter than any other type of antenna,) no matter what the noise level at my location.
How would that receive antenna do on a metal chain link fence?More noisey ? Or could the extra metal act as a counterpoise? Do counterpoises even exist on a horizontal wire antenna? I am a newb.
I think most of local noise is vertically oriented, therefore your vertical is noisy and low dipole is not. Low dipole should work worse on distant stations coming with low angles where properly built vertical should outperform low dipole.
I would look at a loop on the ground (LOG) Rx antenna as well...........15' square of wire pinned to the ground with a little matching transformer..........I have two much more involved Rx arrays here, all home brew Shared Apex Loop and a 5 active element circle array. Both work to significantly reduce local noise, sometimes one is better than the other, sometimes neither is a significant improvement. My LOG also works and is abt as simple as you can get. You can also put down an array of LOG and phase them for directivity. Callum M0XXT (DX Commander) did some videos on the LOG as have several/many others.........agn, simple, easy, cheap.........73 Mike K1FNX near Boston
@@michaelpolimer2128 Thanks. I’ll be trying a LOG. I saw Callums videos about those and it was very interesting. I just haven’t made me a transformer yet but it’s on my list (list too long and time too short.j Thanks for sharing about your RX arrays.
@@traderlarry In my simple mind it works like this. The theory says that when a horizontal polarized antenna is placed close to the ground it responds more to the vertically polarized signals only, because the ground mutes the horizontal signals. In my location my noise appears to be horizontally polarized and my 35 foot tall vertical picks up that noise. The low mounted dipole does not pick it up. I would think that the correct receive would have to be chosen by location because every situation is different. Now all that said, I might have got the polarization completely backwards and if so someone will chime in. Hope this helps answer your question.
Thanks for the report. If you would desire the same low noise on multiple bands: consider replacing your dipole with a horizontal loop skywire antenna for both transmit and receive....you would need to use a tuner for each band change, but you would get great performance. Just 275 feet of wire will get you 80 through 10 meters.
When I trained as a Marconi RO (1969) the standard practice to reduce noise in a receiver was to reduce the RF Gain and to advance the Audio Gain sufficient for good audio reception, then use your RF Gain as your main Gain. Also if you suffer from static build up on your vertical you can use a 1meg resistor between the antenna and ground to bleed off the static.
My vertical antenna is a GAP TITAN DX which I find great and its a very quiet antenna static-wise. I run my IC-7200 with the RF Gain way down and my Audio Gain to around 3 o'clock and use my RF Gain as my main Gain, either increasing or decreasing it when necessary which makes for a very quiet receive
Great video.
73 de Ger EI6DP
Excellent point about the RF Gain and Audio Gain. That makes a huge difference too. Thanks for sharing the 1 Meg resistor tip also.
I'm very new to HAM and I was advised to crank the RF gain all the way up first. I'm literally reading this at 05:30 in the morning, I just fired up my IC-705 to try AF first, then RF gain and worked fantastically!
The only thing that I had to tweak was the DB "REF" on the waterfall as mine was previously set to a permanent+20 dB.
Thanks so much EI6DP!
73 de GB, M7VOK
I’m really glad I stumbled onto one of your earlier videos. I enjoy your content and presentation style. Wishing you success in growing your audience.
@@tincansailor9437Thanks. Just trying to put out information that may help others.
Thanks for the report. If you would desire the same low noise on multiple bands: consider replacing your dipole with a horizontal loop skywire antenna for both transmit and receive....you would need to use a tuner for each band change, but you would get great performance. Just 275 feet of wire will get you 80 through 10 meters.
Thanks for the suggestion, I'll have to look into that.
If you put the dipole in an inverted V config, just raising it up in the middle , it will still be quieter than vertical but also good for transmit too, give it a try
Thanks, I’ll give that a try.
@yqtszhj yes my inverted V just 15 feet height at the peak works great on 40m. Maybe material for another video.
You also get isolation from having a vertically polarized antenna and a horizontally polarized one. There can be as much as a 30 dB difference between horizontal and vertical polarization.
I have severe noise problems at my downtown location, often over S-9 with a vertical, so I built a high Q tunable mag-loop for receive. I also use it for QRP transmit, though it's not designed to handle power. Over-all, if I was only allowed 1 antenna it would be a high-Q tunable mag-loop. It's small. It doesn't need to be tall, no guying or counterpoise requirements, and it's fairly quiet, (quieter than any other type of antenna,) no matter what the noise level at my location.
Excellent points on isolation. I need to try a mag-loop also, haven’t tried that yet.
How would that receive antenna do on a metal chain link fence?More noisey
? Or could the extra metal act as a counterpoise? Do counterpoises even exist on a horizontal wire antenna? I am a newb.
I think most of local noise is vertically oriented, therefore your vertical is noisy and low dipole is not. Low dipole should work worse on distant stations coming with low angles where properly built vertical should outperform low dipole.
I would look at a loop on the ground (LOG) Rx antenna as well...........15' square of wire pinned to the ground with a little matching transformer..........I have two much more involved Rx arrays here, all home brew Shared Apex Loop and a 5 active element circle array. Both work to significantly reduce local noise, sometimes one is better than the other, sometimes neither is a significant improvement. My LOG also works and is abt as simple as you can get. You can also put down an array of LOG and phase them for directivity. Callum M0XXT (DX Commander) did some videos on the LOG as have several/many others.........agn, simple, easy, cheap.........73 Mike K1FNX near Boston
@@michaelpolimer2128 Thanks. I’ll be trying a LOG. I saw Callums videos about those and it was very interesting. I just haven’t made me a transformer yet but it’s on my list (list too long and time too short.j Thanks for sharing about your RX arrays.
Thank you..Brilliant!!..73..John
Thanks for watching and thanks for the comment.
Why does this work?
@@traderlarry In my simple mind it works like this. The theory says that when a horizontal polarized antenna is placed close to the ground it responds more to the vertically polarized signals only, because the ground mutes the horizontal signals. In my location my noise appears to be horizontally polarized and my 35 foot tall vertical picks up that noise. The low mounted dipole does not pick it up. I would think that the correct receive would have to be chosen by location because every situation is different.
Now all that said, I might have got the polarization completely backwards and if so someone will chime in. Hope this helps answer your question.
thanks for the question.and the detailed answer!
I found my monitor transformer was making a lot of noise on 80m and 40m . Wire it to the linear power supply and problem gone .
@@mandytuning Good information. Thanks!
Absolutely brilliant, works perfectly. Well done. 73 zl3xdj
Thank you sir. You provided the inspiration that gave me the motivation, and it has worked out well.
Thanks for the report. If you would desire the same low noise on multiple bands: consider replacing your dipole with a horizontal loop skywire antenna for both transmit and receive....you would need to use a tuner for each band change, but you would get great performance. Just 275 feet of wire will get you 80 through 10 meters.
Thanks for that information!