Noise Blankers ...

Gary L. Robinson

I have always had pretty good luck with the regular noise blanker in SmartSDR and amazed how well it works with many noises without degrading the signal.  I never really noticed the wide noise blanker (WNB) doing anything until the last few weeks WHEN I ran into some rather pesky noise on 10,6, and 2meters (using transverter on 2m).  The noise persisted for days at about S-8 and really made the bands useless.  The regular NB did NOT help at all.  But, I tried the WNB and it took a second or so to kick in BUT my noise was eliminated totally!  From S-8 persistent to S-3 (normal noise level here).

Interestingly, when I first click on the WNB it appears to do nothing BUT in 1 to 1.5 seconds it takes out this particular noise and keeps it out with no effect on quality of weak signals in the band pass.

Really slick.  I'm glad to have both noise blankers!

---Gary WB8ROL

Steve G1XOW

Exactly my observation too. For weeks I thought WNB was doing nothing so left it turned off. One day recently I found some odd local QRM wideband noise that filled the waterfall from side-to-side at about 40% coverage. I turned on the WNB and my jaw dropped as I observed the magic happening. The side-to-side QRM was replaced by a smile from ear-to-ear!

So, the moral of the story, you need to have the right type of noise for WNB!

Cheers, Steve G1XOW

K6OZY

The delay and flashing WNB indicator is the system profiling the noise before applying correction.   That is why it's not instant.   If the noise changes significantly too, you may see it flash after it's applied.   Same thing.

Bob G W1GLV

I'm glad to read about your noise mitigation. As for me I own a 6500 and the noise mitigation sucks if you want to know the truth. ANF is marginal and when I turn it on it degrades the audio. NR & NB have no effect.

Steve G1XOW

Bob, your noise type is clearly not compatible!   I have learned that it takes time and patience to get the right results out of the noise mitigation features. You need to observe and understand what/how to use them in any given situation. The first step is to study the noise form. There is no magic bullet (or SDR button) that works in all cases when it comes to the multitude of noise types and sources we find on the bands.

73 de Steve G1XOW

Walt - KZ1F

Same sentiment expressed as mine. For the longest time I thought it was completely useless. Then, magically, a day or two ago it worked great, on two bands yet. I do, however, think it requires a tutorial and deep dive from Steve Hicks.

The problem with 'oh, you don't have the right noise" is that it begs the response, "no, I dont have the right noise mitigation tool". The former being a terse dismissal of the users situation, effectively blaming the customer.

In fairness, I don't recall Steve, Gerald, or Tim ever saying the former. It's all in the messaging.

Bob G W1GLV

Let me say this.I have an Icom IC-7100 and it's noise mitigation is perfect as far as I'm concerned.

W9OY

Noise mitigation starts at the source of the noise.  It is primarily the job of the station owner not the radio company to mitigate noise.  I'm glad in fairness you decided to not hold Steve Gerald and Tim responsible for your local noise, quite big of you.  

I read here on the list of a case of someone who had noise that wasn't touched by the blankers.  When fooling around in his attic he found a controller to a solar panel.  He switched off the controller and the noise went away.  I'm glad he didn't hold Steve Gerald and Tim accountable for his faulty controller.  The other night I had some noise that the blankers couldn't touch.  I didn't operate much that night.  Fortunately it was gone the next day as I was not looking forward to try and DF the thing.  I didn't hold Steve Gerald and Tim accountable either.  

No one blamed a customer so why would you even say that?  A user complained about his noise in a provocative way aka "sucks", and another user, who was provoked responded.  THAT'S ALL THAT HAPPENED WALT, so why would you try to turn it into "Flex blaming their customer"?  The people involved are not customers of each other.  In fact what G1XOW wrote is correct, and the solution to non blanker covered noise is to find the source and silence it.  So what is it you are messaging OM?  FUD?

73  W9OY

WA6FXT Mike

Bob,

  Why would you use ANF? TNF is so much better.

Mike

Bob G W1GLV

Automatic means automatic, it takes care of tuner uppers automatically.

Jim Best

I feel so absolutely ****.  All of this time I have been sliding the sliders back and forth on WNB, NB, NR, ANF and nothing happened. Surprise! I actually clicked on the respective buttons and a whole new world opened before my eyes. I'm not even blond...DUH...So now I'll go play for a while.
Don't judge me guys, I'm old.
Jim WU7G

Walt - KZ1F

Why are you so defensive?? You take a sentence here and a sentence there out of context and construct some mystical slight that you feel you must respond to. You see offenses that don't exist. If you are not capable of reading something I've said without constructing some perverted intent in it, perhaps it is best for you to stop reading what I write.

Tim - W4TME

Everyone deserves a Mulligan once and awhile ;-)

Steve K9ZW

Thinking on this, we use an industry specific software package that if I were to adjust the settings without that feature being enabled the software in a hover-over type balloon reminds me that that in order to have my setting change affect anything that I need to activate the feature.

I recollect that if the feature is active the hover-over reflects the setting's available range and what the present setting is.

If the indication that an operator is adjusting a feature not turned on could be provided in SmartSDR it would be a nice touch?

73

Steve
K9ZW

Bill W2PKY

This morning on 10 meters there was a buzzing noise. The WNB did nothing but the NB would take out the buzz but inconsistently. Noticed the NB would sometimes take all the buzz away or maybe 1/2 the buzz amplitude and sometimes had not effect on the buzz. Restarted SSDR, results the same.

Bill -VA3WTB

you will find that will happen Bill if the noise is not the right kind, At night my radio is not even operational with out it on 80M. I'm so glad it works for me.

WA6FXT Mike

Bill, BTW - Did you wait, for a few seconds, when you turned on the WNB? Several of us noticed the WNB takes several seconds to "kick in". Mike

Bill W2PKY

Yes, I did wait a while for the WNB to try to kick in.

Walt - KZ1F

Earlier on there was mention of noise 'signatures'. That being the case there are some discrete noise that, given an inversion of that signature and mixing of the result, much like ANC headphones, then it would stand to reason, for those discrete source it would work exceptionally well. The corolary is for sources not matching those signatures, it would not work at all. Of course this theory is dependant on the accuracy of the signature explanation. This would explain the apparent case where it either works exceptionally well or not at all. Maybe it just needs more signatures added?