How to Build a Quiet Station

KY6LA_Howard

Here’s a link to PowerPoint “How to Build a Quiet Station V2.pptx” in my Dropbox for a talk I gave at the San Diego DX ca club in July. I included a lot of material I got directly from talks by Steve and Greg of Flex. https://www.dropbox.com/s/d2yturid60npgdm/How to Build a Quiet Station V2.pptx Here’s a link to PDF “How to Build a Quiet Station V2.PDF” in my Dropbox: https://www.dropbox.com/s/kffp92esffo3zy5/How to Build a Quiet Station V2.pdf Here is an interesting video on the presentation at Friedrichshafen about Adaptive Predistortion http://video.openhpsdr.org/HRF2014/PureSignal1.2.mp4

DK1EY

Thank you, Howard!

VY73
Tom
DK1EY

Tom

Good Job Howard - Thanks
VY73   de Tom K3IO

Sergey R5AU

Thank you for nice job Howard !

Ian1

Howard

Thank you for sharing the Power point excellent presentation.

Ian

DrTeeth

+1 here too Howard.

Cheers

Guy G4DWV/4X1LT

np2g

Great info. Great job Yes grounding proper;y works , Yes Big antennas work, Yes pre distortion Works !!!!! Flex Radio has the right stuff .

k0eoo

Thanks Howard for the very informative presentation...

KD8TVB

Thanks Howard, ground systems pics - awesome

Ernest - W4EG

Thanks Howard,

Working on it as I write.

Carl/K5HK

Nicely done!

Ken - NM9P

Howard, good stuff. Thanks. On a different topic. Your call has always seemed familiar to me, and when I was looking at your presentation it finally came to me... Aren't you the ham/engineer who fought a MAJOR zoning battle over a tower a few years back and put the zoning board all in their places? I would love to hear more about that battle....

KY6LA_Howard

Ken Yes that's me. Very long story. Took 9 years and lots of $$$ to wind it's way thru the courts but my tower and SteppIR MonstIR which was legally permitted and correctly engineered from the beginning still stands. The City was forced to pay me and my lawyers so I came out way ahead financially. We defeated a subsequent attempt to rewrite antenna zoning laws so now any Ham in San Diego can easily get a permit. I recently even won monetary judgments against 3 neighbors who initiated the ruckus. Proved that you can fight city hall and NIMBY neighbors, if you are willing to be ultra aggressive, spend the $, not play nice, when you know they are wrong. If you want more detail write me at ky6la at ky6la dot com

DrTeeth

I thought the USA was much more ham-friendly than that! Sounds like the rubbish one has to go through in the UK to get planning permission.

Howard, your fighting style is very similar to mine when I come across a retailer who tries to stiff me. Never failed. Even 'good' companies like Amazon sometimes need to be put-right.

Cheers

Guy G4DWV/4X1LT

KY6LA_Howard

Actually USA Ham Antennas are a Protected Class under FCC ruling PRB-1 which states that Amateur Antennas MUST be reasonably accommodated. With the minimum practicable regulation (typically vague bureaucratic wording) Unfortunately many local municipalities who issue the actual tower building permits willfully ignore the Federal Law. So it sometimes becomes necessary to take them to court and have a judge explain the law to them. In the long run, if the ham does not give up in frustration he will win. While I have little patience with governments and bureaucrats, having run businesses I tend to cut businesses a lot of slack.

DrTeeth

Ah, that word 'reasonable/reasonably' that all lawyers love as one has to go to court to find out what it means in nearly every case.

I was reading something on a ham usenet group recently about areas of the US that do not permit visible antennas at all.

Cheers

Guy G4DWV/4X1LT

KY6LA_Howard

Not exactly true .,,if you live in an area where there is a Home Owners Association and you agreed to a private contract called "covenants conditions and regulations" called CC&R's that included a ban on antennas then the Federal Exemption currently does not apply to your private party exemption. There is currently an ARRL sponsored bill in Congress to void these private deals because many people do not have a choice as to where they live.

Alan - KA4B

Howard, that video only plays for about 20% of the way through, then it is blank.  I remember running into that when it was posted before.  I would really l like to learn more about adaptive pre distortion if it is available somewhere else.

Alan C

Very informative!!!

May I add one item - stay away from IPS Monitors (In Plane Switching). They produce plenty of interfering birdies....Regular LED monitors work fine...

My .02

Steve B.

Howard -

Again, thanks for the coaching.  In this day and age .. where we expect instant gratification .. I need to convince myself that hunting for RFI is a sport .. and fun!

Steve

VE7ORA

KY6LA_Howard

Google adaptive Predistortion. Hundreds of articles.

KY6LA_Howard

It is a sport like transmitter hunting only the target is hidden somewhere in your house I was able to **** almost 65dB of noise in my house albeit 80% came from one major offender.

Alan C

What was your major offender?

KY6LA_Howard

Old Plasma TV. Second evil source was a power tool battery charger. Once those were corrected with a gazillion toroids, it became quite a fox hunting project to eliminate the last 15 DB. Now if I could only get rid of the 10MW TV towers about 2,900' away which just happen to be in my path to Europe.

Richard G7EIX

I just want to say THANKYOU! THANKYOU! THANKYOU! THANKYOU!

I disassembled my station about 3 weeks ago to re-wire, re-ground and re-think the layout.    I followed your document to the best of my ability with the resources available.   My shack is on the 1st floor, so I have had to utilize an artificial ground - which works great.

Yesterday I finally got everything back together and today I finally had a chance to test everything out.

I am absolutely amazed at how much the noise level is reduced.  I have been chatting with my friends in Texas this evening for the first time since I moved to NC in May 2013 - because I can now hear them!

And no more RF ingress into my speakers!  

Now I am working on getting the antenna higher and really playing with the 6500.

Again.   THANK YOU!

Richard W4/G7EIX

KY6LA_Howard

Your Welcome.. .. Really happy I could help...

Jon_KF2E

Howard,

What do you use to power your SteppIR controller?

Jon...kf2e

Brent Parker

Howard, I'm in a condo. Concrete and re-bar. Only electrical ground is the conduit in the wall. Will that do? I'm in process of snaking coax up to my roof, to move antenna's up there. There is a lighting rod, about 30' tall, with huge copper cables running 120' vertical to under the elevator pit with copper rods. Once there I'll ground the coax up there too.  Was also considering the MFJ 931 artificial ground, but I believe that only improves the RF ground??  Once I've got coax to the roof, I see a steppir beam on the roof deck, and I don't think the mfj does much??

Right now I'm on a homebrew trapped dipole, hanging on my balcony. The noise on 80 meters is S-8! The antenna is only about 10' away from the shack so getting it up away from me about 50' up should improve the situation.

So step 1 is to get the antenna up as high as possiable and away from all my noise (computers, switches, etc). 2 is to get the antenna grounded at the roof to those big copper cables (protection). 3 is to get some grounding of the radio, computers, switches, as best I can to the conduit. The conduit is grounded and there is a green ground wire inside the conduit too. I know it's not "big", but it's about 100' down to earth!

Thoughts.

Thanks,  Brent NB4AP

Walt

I would be very very cautious about tapping into a commercial grounding system without a formal design / electrical inspection by the city/county of authority.

Good luck with your install.

W

Patrick

Great presentation,  Thanks!!!

Pat

KY6LA_Howard

Still recovering from Jet Lag

But I will explain the SteppIR in Detail in a separate comment below