I have been reading the posts about the effectiveness of Ten Tec
noise blankers. Some question whether the noise blanker works.
This is being written from a motel room in Yakima, WA. The
station here is a Argosy with the optional noise blanker. The
antenna is 100 foot random wire that slopes from the fourth-floor
motel window down to the ground at about a 45 degree angle. The
wire is parallel to a high voltage power line, and is just 30
feet away. Only 15 feet from the operating position , just
outside my balcony, is the AC power drop that serves the entire
motel complex of about 150 rooms.
With the noise blanker out, the noise level on 40 meters is a
solid S9. At 10 am local time, I don't hear a single station
across the band.
With the noise blanker in, the noise level is about S4 and the
band is alive with signals. In half and hour of casual
operating, I've enjoyed several nice contacts. The stations
contacted were from one hundred to one thousand miles away.
So does the Ten Tec noise blanker work? If the noise that you
are trying to blank is power line noise, the answer must be an
unqualified yes.
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