Good evening folks.
If I’m writing this late my fellow travelers can be assured of two things:
1. My shortwave radio is set up and purring in my office.
2. My active loop antenna from W6LVP is being used tonight.
I use either my Drake R-8 or the Icom R-75 for SWL/DXing to rest assured, the W6LVP loop is being used to reduce some of the noise from my choice of golf course condo living. It is not 100% effective but using it helps nullify anywhere from 60-80% of the QRM created by electrical appliances in my unit and my neighbors giving me a chance to enjoy some nice DX on occasions when conditions permit.
For example this past several days:
12040 Khz, KSDA AWR Guam, in English at 2207 UTC with religious programming. Fair to poor as propagation created some deep fading as sunrise accelerated in the Pacific.
9385 Khz, Radio Thailand in English at 1203 UTC with world news then Southeast Asian/Thai news. Good until 1224.
9435 Khz, KCBS, North Korea in Korean at 1231 UTC, military music, male talking with pretty clear ID, more military music and what sounded like a militaristic propaganda program.
11895 Khz, Vatican Radio in Vietnamese via Tinang in the Philippines at 2316 UTC, sign on with religious programming fading fast with Pacific sunrise
The key to reducing electrical noise is using things like RF chokes and yes, reducing the dependency on AC adapters for one’s shack. Since my shack is full of computer displays, computers, etc., the noise level can become obscene.
I stumbled on to this one accessory by accident and decided to give it a test drive to help with the electrical noise introduced into my W6LFP loop antenna with preamp. The preamp is driven by a 12 V AC adapter but this new $8 accessory from Amazon.com actually knocked the electrical noise down by a full 1-2 db.
To see how I set this up, here are some of the photos of what this simple add on looks like and why I have linked it on to my page.
As one can see, this simple battery box that I purchased uses AA batteries, I burned through a set of Duracell due to heavy usage (plus using up old stock) then switched to the Energizer Lithium-Ion AA batteries that are much longer lasting.
Simply plug the batter pack into the power port on the W6LVP amp and boom, one is in business.
There is my cheap recommendation for all of my old time SWL/DXing buddies stuck in high electrical noise situations who need an alternative to the usual response of “go play outside” one tends to hear.
73’s,
John
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