I haven't posted here for quite a while. Its not that I have lost interest however the shack has largely been dismantled and most of the antennas taken down as I am waiting to move house. Of course these things take time and even if all goes to plan it may be a few months before I am at my new QTH. In the meantime the only antenna still in use is my Wellbrook active receiving loop along with a couple of receivers in the shack. So for now I am almost totally an SWL. This would not be so bad if I didn't have a very bad noise problem here. I have been unable to trace this noise. It disappeared for a couple of months in the summer, but now its back. I don't think it comes from my neighbours properties as a while back we had a power cut in the street and checking with a battery powered receiver the noise was still there. The noise it at its worst below about 7 mhz, it wipes out parts of the medium wave, as well as the 160m and 80 metre bands and affects 40metres to a lesser extent.
Here's an example of the effect on medium wave.
I am just hoping my new QTH will be a bit quieter on HF!!
I still have 2 metres FM and HF on my Icom 706 in the car so can operate mobile however 2 metres in this area is a wasteland with very little activity. With the house move and the prospect of no antennas for a while I have even got involved in an area of radio that I had always been rather critical in the past- D-STAR. I will talk more about this in future blogs, it is a way of still getting some radio activity in at the moment but it is cheating and doesn't of course have the same magic at operating on HF!
