I, too, have a noise blanker in my OMNI-V that seems a
bit substandard in comparison to one of it's Japanese
opponents, the FT-990. It is sometimes as effective
as the ones in the R-71A or the TR-7, but, not anywhere
near as good as the Yaesu's...
The FT-990's NB will remove a lot of noise that the
OMNI-V's will not touch, until that is, I turn the OMNI's
up almost all the way...then signal sever degradation
of the signal sets in and copy becomes more difficult.
I even have a Timewave DSP-59 hooked up to the OMNI and
not to the 990, yet there are times when there are noise
sources near me that the only thing that touches them
is the 990's blanker....
I've had my OMNI-V for a year and a half, the FT-990 for
at least 3 and a half and have found that where one falls
short, the other makes up for it....I especially like the
AGC action on the OMNI, I feel like it's much better than
that on the FT-990...plus the OMNI hears the satellite
downlinks on 10m better than the 990, unless that is, there
is severe local noise and the 990's noise blanker can do a
better job, then it wins.
Still the best noise blanker that I have around here for
removing the noise so prevalent on the low bands is an
old Hallicrafters SR-400A Cyclone III....it's adjustable
noise blanker is almost like a DSP in it's ability to
quieten up a noisy night, I have been amazed at it's
abilities on more than one occasion!
I guess one of the next things I ought to experiment with
around here is one of the phasing antenna noise cancellers
to eliminate the noise before it reaches the rigs.....
73,
Rick Blank, KI5SL rblank@txdirect.net
2223 Blanco Road KI5SL@K3WGF.STX.USA.NOAM
San Antonio, Texas 78212 AMSAT NA#26195
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