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Author Topic: NAVY MARS  (Read 6765 times)

AE8Q

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NAVY MARS
« on: June 21, 2008, 02:00:35 AM »

Well I joined Navy MARS a couple months ago,  tried to copy the nets and broadcasts on 4 different HF transceivers using my Butternut vertical... NO luck, for the last 5 or 6 months all I can hear on my radios is a S9+20 to 30 over buzzing and other nasty noises on every band below 20 meters.. so I guess NNN0PBET is giving up... I guess the noise won this round, even my Ten-Tec Omni 6+ and Jupiter are no match for the noise..........73   Gary AE8Q/NNN0PBET
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W3LK

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NAVY MARS
« Reply #1 on: June 21, 2008, 06:43:30 AM »

With all due respect, have you tried to find out just WHERE all that noise is coming from? The odd are it's something either within your house or immediately within your neighborhood that generating it.

Also, do you have a decent radial field for your Butternut? I've used one for years and have never had that kind of noise problem.

Lon - NNN0OOR (Former MDE SMD, Deputy SMD, Assistant For Net Operations)
Southern New England Navy-Marine Corps MARS
Proudly Serving Those Who Serve
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W3LK

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NAVY MARS
« Reply #2 on: June 21, 2008, 06:56:16 AM »

PS - with all due respect again, this really has nothing to do with MARS, per se. It affects your whole amateur radio operation.

Or did you think MARS frequencies were immune to noise? (I WISH!!!) <g>

Lon - NNN0OOR (Former MDE SMD, Deputy SMD, Assistant For Net Operations)
Southern New England Navy-Marine Corps MARS
Proudly Serving Those Who Serve
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AE8Q

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NAVY MARS
« Reply #3 on: June 21, 2008, 03:38:44 PM »

I am not sure what causes the noise, but sometimes around 4:am in the morning I noticed the noise goes away for an hour or so... I figured the DSP in the Ten-Tec rigs would get rid of the noise, no luck..  I have radials installed at the Butternut antennas base and buried about 1 inch below the surface .. I had a dipole [shortened 55'long with traps] up in the air before my neighbor tore it down, that was before I joined MARS.. and I never had the chance to try it on the MARS freq's... I bought several used HF dipole antennas at the last hamfest but they are too long for my yard, I bought a mobile home in a trailer park and my yard is about 85' long by 40' wide with nothing to hang the full size dipoles on to get them to work properly...
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W3LK

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NAVY MARS
« Reply #4 on: June 21, 2008, 05:05:59 PM »

<<  had a dipole [shortened 55'long with traps] up in the air before my neighbor tore it down,>>

You need a better class of neighbor. If it were me, and the antenna was on MY property, the neighbor would be in jail for malicious destruction of property!!!

You need to use common noise tracking techniques and find out what the problem is. It could be power line problems, a battery charger for power tools an aquarium heater, a door bell transformer. First thing is to run your radio on a battery and turn off your breakers one by one to eliminate the possibility that the problem is in your trailer. If it's not, then go around the neighborhood with a portable AM radio and listen for the noise. You might give your power company a call and ask them to check the power lines,  pole pigs and disconnects in your area.

As for the Butternut, it's a great antenna but not really good for state MARS nets, the takeoff angle is too low for the 100-200 mile radius you need for MARS. If you must use it, you need 20-30 radials about 25' long, as a minimum.

Lon - NNN0OOR (Former MDE SMD, Deputy SMD, Assistant For Net Operations)
Southern New England Navy-Marine Corps MARS
Proudly Serving Those Who Serve
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N5YPJ

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NAVY MARS
« Reply #5 on: July 02, 2008, 05:42:40 PM »

"If it were me, and the antenna was on MY property, the neighbor would be in jail for malicious destruction of property!!!"

Wonder if our castle doctrine here in Texas applies to antennas as property also?
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KB3ONA

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NAVY MARS
« Reply #6 on: July 13, 2008, 09:02:34 PM »

Gary,

Just a thought, the noise you're describing sounds similar to a situation I encountered with our plasma TV. It pretty muched drowned out all but the strongest signals on everything below 20 meters. In my case I was lucky to figure it out before the 30 day return policy ran out so I traded it in for an LCD - no problems at all now. Just thought I'd mention it.

73, Gene
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N6JSX

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NAVY MARS
« Reply #7 on: July 27, 2008, 07:30:35 AM »

I assume this RFI is across the HF bands and not just specific to MARS HF? So this is not a MARS issue but a problem with your local neighborhood onto HAM HF OPs.

I've found a number of items that cause HF RFI. Dimmer switches to lights - wall or light mounted, wall being the worse.

Rodent/bug repellers are poorly decoupled from the AC power supply pumping noise back into the home AC lines. Typically it is a pulsing broad frequency white noise but it can be non-pulsing - more pronounced on 2m but I've hear them on HF too.

Of course the old standby is florescent light ballasts.

Since you are in a trailer park your noise could come from neighbors 2-5 trailers away all depends on the power pole AC transformer setup. You have a near impossible to solve problem - the only solution to neighbor RFI is move - DSP will not solve it.
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