Waterfall anxiety

VK1HF

Confession : seeing a waterfall of a band which allows me to see interference from noise sources causes me anxiety!

Does anyone else get this?

I remember the good old days.. before waterfall displays where you would just tune around and see what's what etc. skip over noises sources and focus on the gold, a human calling CQ or a convo you could jump in to.

So I'm setting up a flex8400 at my mates remote shack. He has solar chargers, when the sun comes up they make some crazy noise. See pics. There is STILL a lot of the band that is fine AND the flex with its amazing notch filters, I can have a conversation right where there is QRM and notch it out.

I liken ham radio to fly fishing, a fickle bunch, sometimes the bait isn't right, the line is wrong, the casting is poor..but when it all comes together you get the fish! However now, before I even go and cast a line I can see the whole river and sometimes knowing the picture of the entire river makes me go..ahh..what's the point...!

This is written with a smile even though it may sound darrkkk.

Anyone else sometimes think maybe a waterfall isn't a good thing?

BTW.. LOVE my waterfall!!

PS in this post - I'm not seeking advice on grounding, killing noise sources, or quality chargers etc.

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Wayne VK4ACN

I love the waterfall. Had a Flex since 2014 and wouldnt get a radio without one, and Flex does have the best waterfall. But I live in the inner city, my neighbours are very close, and I stress everytime someone in the neighbourhood turns on a piece of junk equipment and I get blasted with interference of some sort. But I am noticing with the 8600, the WNB seems to be working much better than the WNB on the 6500, so thats a plus. Just hoping in the not too distant future, Flex can do more with noise mitigation as its only going to get worse for everyone

73

Wayne, VK4ACN

VK1HF

I haven't even started to use the WNB yet..don't even know what it is...you've got me looking into it.

Post a pic of when your neighbours start up there ming tau hoverboard charger lol...at least we can went 🤦🏼

@others... Please do share your stories and post pics.

KD0RC

@VK1HF definitely check out the WNB, but the noise lines that you see from the solar won't likely be reduced by the WNB.

I use a Timewave ANC-4 to get rid of the junk that my neighbors and I create. It is really cool to adjust the phase and gain controls and see the interference just drop away. The panadapter makes adjustment so much easier!

VE7ATJ_Don

agreed on the utility of a waterfall… just finishing up Winter Field Day on an 'old' :-) knob radio.

I really missed being able to 'see' the entire band at once and know whether or not it's going to be an OK or even useful session. I do not enjoy having to scan around looking for signals. (Sorry guys….)

KD0RC

I'm with you Don. I can hardly operate old school rigs anymore!

Mike Steventon

In total agreement re. benefit of Waterfall/panadaptor.

Although I cannot help feeling nostalgia of trying to find an SSB signal and tuning to it using an old AR88D receiver in my SWL days!! There was something quite magical in succeeding!!

73, Mike G4GWH

Mark_WS7M

Yes I commented on this quite some time ago.

In the "old days" you tuned and hear a chirp, you listened for a second to see if it was a CW signal but then you went on and thought "birdie"…. Now you can see just how many "birdie" artifacts there are!

Most of the time, where I live on my 80m loop antenna, 40m is like S3. This morning it's S5. There are definitely signals there but I even get stressed just seeing the noise floor be higher.