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Re: Topband: Elimination of Treadmill RFI on 160 meters

To: topband@contesting.com
Subject: Re: Topband: Elimination of Treadmill RFI on 160 meters
From: Jim Brown <jim@audiosystemsgroup.com>
Reply-to: jim@audiosystemsgroup.com
Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 20:13:10 -0800
List-post: <topband@contesting.com">mailto:topband@contesting.com>
On Tue,1/27/2015 3:19 PM, Brad Rehm wrote:
You make a good point about the difference between our definition of CM
noise and the definition implied in Part 15.  If the external torroid made
a difference for you, then it's important and worth having.

Exactly. The commercial filter addresses only differential mode. The ferrite choke is necessary to suppress what we (and Part 15) call common mode.

Several years ago, I put some good quality line filters in electrical boxes for use on Field Day and California QSO Party county expeditions with our Yamaha generators. They didn't do much -- to kill the moderate trash, I had to to wind multiple turns of the line cord through a big ferrite core. I used a big 1-in i.d. Fair-Rite #31 "clamp-on" that's a couple of inches long (the biggest they make). Depending on the diameter of the line cord I had used, I was able to get either three or four turns through it. That was enough to kill 20-10M, which is what we heard in the tri-banders that were close to the generator, and for the 80/40 dipoles that were much further away. If the 80/40 antennas had been closer we would likely have needed more turns.

Did the commercial line filters do any good? I don't know -- but they certainly didn't hurt, and the boxes I put them in have a bunch of outlets on them for power distro. :) OTOH, one of the guys used to bring his big RV with a noisy generator on-board. All I used there was as many turns as I could get through a small stack of 1.4-in i.d. #31 toroids as close as I could get them to the generator, and it did the job.

73, Jim K9YC


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