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[IRCA] Ferrite antenna
Yesterday I had some time so I put a 24" ferrite rod antenna at the top of
my 80' tower. Reason was to try to get away from the noise. In the house,
noise is enough to bother semi-locals especially at the bottom of the band.
It did reduce the noise and oddly it increased the signal levels by at least
10db. I did a scan through the dial from that antenna and then again using
an identical one that's in my truck. Noise did seem to drop.
It's set to null in the direction of New York City. WFAN-660 is down to an
unlistenable level. Other stations are also minimised. At night it does
work decently. At some point I may bring a rotor up there so I can actively
null stations.
On another matter, I have an issue with the SDR-14. When I upgraded the
Spectravue software the gain dropped a lot. In the past I could see peak
carrier levels of around -20 on the waterfall. Now it's closer to -80db.
Still can hear most things, but it seems quite deaf in comparison. I have
set to maximum gain for both IF and RF. Bringing it down from that makes
things inaudible. I brought in the Palstar radio from the truck and hooked
it up to the output of the preamp. Locals were close to S9+40 on the meter.
Plenty of signal. I went through every possible selection on the menu and
nothing brought it back. Anyone else notice this? Maybe there's a failure
of an amplifier or other component in it. Everything else works correctly.
Just not much sensitivity.
Craig Healy
Providence, RI
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