W4NBO

RFI location Gear

Kenwood TS-830s & Doublet – A fine old receiver with nice analog meter. I use this as my baseline for existing RFI on HF. I have become accustom to what atmospheric noise levels are vs manmade after listening to this model receiver for 4+ decades.

Station directional antennas 4 element 6 meter & 13 element 2 meter both horizontal with ICOM IC-7100 – Used to determine general direction of noise. Squelch lends itself nicely to monitoring for intermittent RFI noise without having to listen to atmospheric noise. Volume can be turned up and heard over the entire house. Noise pattern, especially intermittent, can be compared in real time to TS-830s audio.

RTL-SDR & Ubuntu Linux – SDR receiver used to analyze noise pattern. Can capture noise recording here or manually with cellphone on other receivers for analyzing in Audacity.

Audacity Software – Used to expand noise recording to ID for instance 120hz noise pulses.

QSL.net – Used to store webpages with info to assist those involved in fixing the RFI and to possibly help other amateur radio op’s.

Binoculars – Used to possibly see a power line arc

Monocular – Used to more closely see a power line arc

Digital Camera – Used to take photos to email power co and take closeup photos to visual try and identify and issues.

Field location Antennas

20 meter loop – homebrew. Would be easy to make one of these for most any HF frequency.

2m 4 element homebrew tape measure yagi

440 5 element aluminum commercial antennas

Field Receivers

Yaesu FT-817 usually in AM mode

Yaesu FT-60 usually in AM mode

Retransmit gear

Baofeng 440 HT’s, one modified for quick hookup to a station receiver to retransmit the noise to compare noise pattern to field receiver in the field to ensure hunting of the correct noise.

Homebrew Ultrasonic Dish built from the QST W1TRC article. Preprinted PC board and original dish from the article.

Homebrew Ultrasonic tone generator – To ensure dish is fully operational and sighted in.

TinySA – Portable Spectrum Analyzer. Recently added to my arsenal but not used yet for actual RFI hunt