For Those Who Have S7 to S9 Noise on HF:
For two decades I lived as a cliff dweller in both city and beachfront high-rise condos before moving back into a single-family home 15 miles from the White House four years ago. In all of those locations, the noise would average S7 to S9 – virtually wiping out HF.
MFJ-1026
I solved this problem with the MFJ-1026 noise canceling gizmo. I even had two of these – one for each of my FT-991 transceivers. With the right noise antenna, by kicking these suckers on, my noise level would very consistently drop to S1 to S3! Phenomenal gizmo!
Notice that I stressed “right noise antenna” – if you don’t do this right, you will not see any improvement. What usually worked well for me was a simple 20m dipole. During my cliff dweller days, I had a variety of stealth antennas on my balconies including my best performer: the MFJ 1786 magnetic loop antenna.
(https://k3rrr.com/mfj-1786-loop-antenna-my-stealth…/)
For the noise antenna, I would run an extra coax out the door for the small 20m dipole that would be located on the other end of the balcony. For our current single-family dwelling, the 20 m dipole is right above me in the attic. Your mileage may vary – and you may be able to get away with a much smaller noise antenna than even a small 20 m dipole. The secret is that you want your noise antenna to hear the same noise that your main antenna is hearing – with more focus on the noise than the signals you want to hear.
Unfortunately, the MFJ 1026 only covers HF and not VHF and UHF. However, for HF, this gizmo is worth its weight in gold. However, this is old technology with no newer technology that I know of that does the job. If you are burdened with HF noise, I highly recommend this box.
Robert
PS: I bought both of mine off eBay for about $110 each …BTW, the telescoping whip antenna was a joke with zero help with any of my noise….ever. Note that a lot of reviews of this gizmo are negative – probably because they did not set up the right noise antenna – maybe believing that the whip antenna would actually work.
Another BTW: an internal switch controls whether the whip is used…I found essentially the same non-results no matter the internal switch setting – but that may have a lot to do with my particular noise sources. If your noise is inside the shack, the whip with the internal switched set to the whip, might even help.
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73 de Robert K3RRR
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