<<<Although you might be able to find issues with RFI ahead of time
and by all means I'd do it - I can say here at my location I didn't
find anything that was overly alarming from the ground. Other than one
power line noise issue and that kind of RFI you can generally get
corrected. Even when I tested my monobanders on the 'test tower' at
37' noise wasn't really evident - one in one direction was there but
just a slight rise ... it wasn't until the main tower went up and the
antennas at their full height that all of this stuff showed up - noise
from most every direction and I'm out in the 'boonies' a bit on 11
acres ... its quite depressing.
I now am working on a portable SDR radio and I'm going to wear a
construction vest to hopefully look benign when I walk up to someone's
house with this equipment. Besides more power line issues, now up to 4
different directions out to over 3000' away (one fixed, one to be
fixed - the worst one the Power company says is not their fault as it
is underground and their HV line ends before where I get the noise)
... a GROW light from 700' away and at least 2 plasma TV's in
different directions... >>>
Unless you move to northern Nevada or some location that shows
darkness on those "earth at night" sat. photos, this is the new
normal. You can spend ham time chasing down folks with plasma TV
sets etc. but for all the time invested in one victory, more problems
will pop up with every purchase from Best Buy etc. The RFI train left
the station, isn't coming back, and the only minimally time consuming
measure available is a combination of high transmit power and phased
receiving antennas to null out unwanted noise. One possible exception
are the weak signal modes like the one invented by Joe Taylor. For
traditional analog modes, particularly on the low bands, good tx
antennas and QRO are increasingly necessary.
73
Rob
K5UJ
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