I think 'Murphy' lives here!
 

G'day all, well today I saw something that can't be explained and doesn't make any sense (at all) to me. My usual 20 m antenna, a full wave Quad loop had suddenly become very noisy over a couple of days, sounding like severe power line noise which we do experience here at times.

My loop was vertically polarised, so I thought ok that must be the reason so I switched it back to horizontal. Almost no difference! I thought about it for a while and ran a few diagnostics. Eveything tested 100 percent ok.

A little later on I put up my 20 m ground plane vertical (actually it's a pretty good antenna), back upstairs and connected it up and guess what, ZERO noise. I reconnected the loop and once again, a solid S7 noise!

Why? I haven't a clue. Can anybody offer any explanation? Regards, Felix (vk4fuq) aka catman.

Haints, Gremlins....(grin)

There has to be some kind of loose connection to the quad. Disconnect each piece of that antenna system and temporarily connect parts to your receiver, and see what you get. Let us know what you find.

I am not surprised that Murphy is busy in Australia. He joins me on most of my service calls at work, and is also very busy every time I go on a camping trip in my motorhome.

G'day all, just a general update. Yesterday large trucks and crews from Ergon (our local electrical utility) were working on all the large power distribution poles up town all day, and this morning I can report that my S7 noise level on 20 m has gone and the noise level is 'zero'.

Good. Now I'm wondering what was causing the noise. :scratch2: Regards, Felix (vk4fuq) aka catman.

Poor connections on the high tension lines or a few bad lightning arrestors.

G'day mate, yes that's all it can take. Interestingly enough all this work was taking place kilometres away yet the noise was being detected at this QTH (location). :scratch2: Regards, Felix (vk4fuq) aka catman.