Hello, every night at 8pm like clock work I get so much static on 2m meters I can’t hear any contacts. I am using a Diamond x50 antenna with 50ft of rg8u low loss coax. The antenna is about 40 ft up in the air. I do live about 2 miles from our airport in Cleveland Ohio. Not sure if it’s something they are turning on.
Thanks Paul
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Hi @KE8WHG
If it’s at a specific time, I think it must be something at the airport seeing how close you are.
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what type of radio are you using? perhaps the front end is overwhelmed by some other strong signal nearby…
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I am using a Yaseu FTM200
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Thank you for the reply
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Hello @KE8WHG
Is the antenna you use vertical or directional?
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Unless I’m missing something, The FTM-200 you’re using is not 10m capable. It’s 2m/70cm. It’s 108 Mhz to 999 Mhz. The 10m band is at 28 Mhz. If you’re using it as an aviation band scanner, it’s going to pick up a bunch of noise at night because those frequencies are in the AM spectrum.
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Sorry it is a 2m/70cm ftm200. I am using it as my base station for now. It’s using a diamond x50 a vertical antenna with 50ft of RG8u low loss coax. The issue is that the noise appears at night around 8PM on 2 meters only. Then about 5A.M. the noise is gone? IKD been thru the shack and nothing is running at that time. Nothing on a timer etc.
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GM @KE8WHG
Ok, don’t worry, if it were a directional antenna, by moving the antenna you will be able to see in which direction the noise is stronger.
Alfredo WP3C
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I think the only way to know for sure would be to listen with an SDR dongle to see if you could determine if it’s a radio signal or if it’s some kind of electrical noise.
thinking logically about this, I’d be surprised if it was the airport, I can’t imagine the FCC would allow that level of QRM, I think it’s more likely to be an LED light or something close to either the antenna, the coax or maybe the radio. The timed nature of it makes me think there’s an outside light nearby, likely cheap LED, giving off a load of noise.
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Thanks for your reply. I will pick up an sdr donge. Strange you mentioned LED lights. The city just started replacing the street lights with LED lights. Lucky me they just put one across the street from my QTH a few months back. I will let you know how it turns out.
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Was my the house two doors LED deck lights. UGH
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If there is a Touch Lamp in the house, it could be when someone actuates the lamp by touching the base. The interference might also be coming from a birdie, being generated by a computer desktop/laptop or an interface unit like Alexa or Echo or other brand. There is a local ham near me who’s experiencing this problem with an item at his operating position. Is there a school nearby? A fellow club member is being plagued with a full scale signal on 2m SSB. After we did a sweep of his proximity to the school building, we found that the culprit was a harmonic of the 70MHz band which controls/synchronizes all the numerous clocks within the school building. This operation is illegal, and the school system is now looking at another controller-(which was made by a Chinese manufacturer) The Chinese manufacturer has another controller for the same function which happens to fall within the 33cm ham band. Also, a legal issue.
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starts at 2000 and over at 0500 could it be a bad driver on a street light near your house?? sounds like dark time could also be the band dropping off.
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Thank you for the reply, I believe it’s coming from some led lights that a house down the street is using. They are lighting up some trees in the woods near my house. They come on a dusk and by 4A.M. the are off. They must be on a timer. At that moment the noise is all gone. I have move my vertical antenna up about six feet but no change. I also tried my roll up Jpole in the front my Home but is all the same.
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Sounds like a dirty LED driver circuit throwing of a bunch of EMI. Have you tried ferrite cores on the coax? Another area to look at is the connector make sure the shield on the coax has a good electrical connection and no common mode current is on the cable.
Good Luck,
73 KR2EMS
Peter
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