Welcome back – we’ll start this time with some more on targets from hard to hear states…trivia time – see if you can pick out the reference to a state being in a portion of the country that it’s not somewhere in this column.

Eric C. Loy <obvious@prairienet.org>: Read with much interest in DX News about your picks for some of these states. Here's the take in Champaign IL: Oregon, not heard. Washington, KOMO heard in the old WCFL silent period days, not since. Idaho, not heard. Nevada, not heard. Montana, KGHL-790 a few times, mostly in sunrise DX, KFLN-960 heard/veried ONCE at sunset. Arizona, despite numerous tries, not heard. New Mexico, KBIM-910 has been in at least 5 times here since November, and at least two times at quite loud levels over pest KVIS. No others, though.

East, no Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire. Two Rhode Islands heard thanks to Craig Healy tests way back when. Several New Jerseys logged in the last two years, two expanded banders and 1430 and Flemington on 1040 late at night. And finally, Delaware, WJWL-900 heard/veried on a DX test.

No B.C., territories or Maritimes Canadians. No Puerto Rico, either, though I keep hoping for a breakthru on 1660.

Neil Kazaross <neilkaz@interaccess.com>: Great to here from you Eric...My QTH in Barrington is 3 hours north of you. I confine my comments to regular schedule with silent periods ignored.

I need to try for KBIM…are you getting it at sunset on their day power?!? Oregon...phase 1190 WOWO and get KEX early in fall months prior to there sunset (Done it about 5 times). Also 1080 a couple of times prior to the Polish Chicago pest running nights. Nevada...got lucky and nabbed Vegas on 1140 w/WRVA phased prior to Vegas sunset. 1050 KITA seems to be best bet for MT at sunset...look for the French on 1050 as indicator earlier.

CBU 690 on very good nights can be heard. As for PR...got 630 in severe aurora last year once!

Randy Stewart <jrs555t@smsu.edu>: Eric Loy's list of tough catches from Illinois inspired me to do a similar list of my own for Springfield MO...

In 30 years of DXing, I've made it to 42 states and 6 provinces. Oregon--unheard. Never logged the 1640 station, even when the frequency was LESS crowded than it is now. Only Washington state so far is KREW-1210 on a DX test in 1993. Only Idaho: KBSU-730 on the March 4, 1996 DX test. Only Nevada has been KDWN-720, which has never answered my numerous reception reports. No Hawaii or Alaska, of course. Only Connecticut so far has been the recent WTIC/KRLD joint test/silent period (still waiting for a reply from WTIC, too.) Only Maryland so far: WMDM-1690. Other unheards are all New Englanders: no Maine, Delaware, New Hampshire, Rhode Island or Vermont. Unheard provinces so far are NF, NWT, NS, PEI, NB, Yukon, Nunavut. No Puerto Rico here either, though like Eric I keep checking 1660 hopefully...Kevin Redding <amfmtvdx@qwest.net>: This is the list that would be beyond awesome from AZ. Alaska, Hawaii, Rhode Island, Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire, Delaware, USVI, Puerto Rico, Saipan, Marianas Islands Trust, Guam, American Samoa, North Dakota, South Carolina in the US. Canadians, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland, Nunavut, Yukon and the NWT.

Its gonna be a long time if ever that I can say I heard all those.

Rick Lewis <ricklew@shellworld.net>: Hi, Kevin, Isn't the Jamestown on 600 in North Dakota? KFJB, I think it is? I've gotten that with a decent signal before winter sunset.Kevin Redding: Rick, I do have KSJB and what I should have said was South Dakota.

Neil Kazaross: OK...forgot some and will add DX test stuff

Nevada 720 780 heard one special morning with my superlocals off a few years back and were PEI and NS and Sedona AZ on 780 who said the carried that talk program...(no ID heard as was weak under Reno etc)730 Idaho DX test was in.. can’t seem to nab KBLI 1620 yet. Washington...KGA heard once prior to their sunset in same conditions to get Oregon and also KREW once in similar conditions. Again without phasing...no WA ever here.

Also NM on 770 KKOB once with football game prior to their pattern switch (bad channel do to WBBM slop...but was clear)Saul Chernos <schernos@sympatico.ca>: Forget Nunavut, Yukon and NWT. Don't hold your breath on some of the others, either...But you should get Ontario someday...Rick Kenneally <woodlandview@yahoo.com>: Eric, Very interesting list! You inspired me, so I pulled my Cincinnati logs from March 78 through August 81:States not heard: 7 - AK, HI, ID, ME, MT, RI, VT

I remember spending hours and hours and hours trying for KBOI Boise and for the station on 1000 in Vermont.States heard: 43 - One station only:

NV - KMJJ-1140, NH - WHEB-750 but heard a few times, MA - WBZ only, OR - KEX-1190, UT - KSL-1160, WA - KOMO on ET during WCFL silent period, WY - KTWO-1030.

Two stations only:

AZ - KNIX-1580 at s/off & KRDS-1190; DE - WJWL on CPC & WDEL-1150; SD - KKAA-1560 & KSOO-1140 s/off; NJ - WBIO-1310 on CPC test & WMIB-1340 (!); NM - KHOB-1390 & KOB-770; ND - KMAV-1520 & KQWB-1550.

States heard most: TN-88 and KY-77

Some of the more outlandish receptions were verified by letter, the rest are all on tape. Things that strike me, looking back over these logs:- The station I logged next after logging KEX was XEK.

- There were lots of silent periods, equipment tests, frequency checks, etc. back then.

- Lots of loggings of daytimers signing on/off.

- I kept programming notes in one notebook, and dry, statistical logs in another. I've since lost the programming notes, leaving just the logs with fewer memories.- My HQ-180 was never working very long between tube failures. But some of my best graveyard loggings were on a Radio Shack TRF - don't know why it was better than the DX-160 (probably something to do with AGC). - God, did I have stamina in high school! Soooo many loggings from the wee hours.Thanks for initiating that little walk down memory lane.Patrick Martin <mwdxer@webtv.net>: Here on the Oregon Coast, I still need 4 states and DC. The states are: WV, NH, VT, and DE. Those are toughies even with a beverage. I also forgot the Canadians, NWT and NS I still need.Eric C. Loy: I have heard KBIM mostly in the 3-5 am range, I assume they switched patterns early, but I've heard stranger. Logged them on the Drake w/Quantum and the TRF, but actually the first and best quality reception was on a Superadio III!I still use my old TRF 12-655 when I visit in Mahomet (8 miles west) and she still pulls them in like a charm. Needs some work on the volume slide, though. Had over 900 with it (occasionally with a Select-a-tenna) before. Looked at a running log I kept in the early 80's and the TRF had Colombians in quite often, but very few Northern or NW logs. In the last two years, it's gone the other way. Many Minnesota/Wisconsin/Michigan and Canada logs, virtually no Colombians. Had a pretty fair Mexico opening a little while ago, though...Bruce Conti <BACONTI@aol.com>: Eric: Your DX recent DX observations are parallel to mine. Colombia used to be regular on frequencies like 610, 650, 700, 760, 770, 810, 1000, and 1170. This DX season reception from Colombia (and Venezuela) has been off. I also had a huge opening to Mexico end of March with armchair copy of 900 and 940, while also receiving R.Mil 1000 and R.Educacion 1060. Other than that, conditions for the most part have been favoring reception from the midwest and Canadian maritimes. One would expect sustained solar activity to improve Caribbean and Latin American reception, but so far this has not been the case with the exception of a couple of short duration openings.Chris Rigas <crigas@birinc.com>: Eric, Great topic. During my 21 years of DXing in the Chicago area there are 4 states that I have not been able to catch yet: Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho and Maine.Some of the tough ones that I managed to hear: Arizona - back in 1983 860 KVAA Phoenix used to come in with Spanish language format. Delaware was heard thanks to a DX Test. Montana was heard on 770 - KATL. Nevada was heard on 780 with WBBM off. New Hampshire heard thanks to DX Test by 1370 WFEA. New Mexico used to be heard on 540, with KNMX making it during sunset. Oregon was heard on 1080, long before the local pest appeared. Rhode Island was heard thanks to DX Test. Vermont was received several time on 620 thanks to WVMT, before WTMJ increased their power. Finally Washington state was easy thanks to KOMO and a regular WCFL silent period.On the foreign front I am still unsuccessfully trying to get Puerto Rico and Jamaica and Panama.

Steve Francis <Amdxmail@aol.com>: I was able to hear 44 states in the 90's, thanks in large part to all the DX tests. Three states haven't been heard since the 70's: ID (KGEM-1140 off-pattern and WRVA off), VT (WCFR-1480 frequency check and a DX test from WSYB-1380), and OR (1976 DX tests from KSLM-1390 and KLAD-960). WY hasn't been heard since either the late 70's or early 80's - whenever WBZ went 24/7. The two I heard were KTWO-1030 and long-gone KNIE-1530 Cheyenne.John Callarman <JohnCallarman@email.msn.com>: Well, let's see. From Texas I have confirmed dozens of Californians, several Oregonians including a 1,000-watter on 1370 and a 250-watt graveyarder on 1450, more than half a dozen Hawaiians... everything except Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island and Delaware.But that was in the late '50s and early '60s, when most stations signed off seven nights and nearly all signed off at midnight Sunday night. Since moving back to Texas in August of last year, I've managed to find KNX-1070, and those phone numbers from the Santa Cruz area on 1080 when KRLD was off for the only West Coast tapes, KFNX-1100 for Arizona, KSL for Utah, KTWO for Wyoming and that's it. I can hear KDKA on 1020, Cleveland on 1100, Cincinnati on 700, 1530 and 1360, but Boston on 1030, New York on 660, 770 and 880 are all blocked. Nor have I heard Philadelphia on 1060 or 1210.I was unable to hear WTIC when KRLD was off and WTIC was on. I have not heard a single Canadian since I've been back in Texas.

But I haven't tried too hard for anything in the U.S. and Canada, concentrating my DX time on Mexico.DXing is a lot harder now, but it's still fun... and it will be more fun when I can get some good antennas up. With work that's being done by Connolly, Dangerfield, Bryant, Kazaross, Merriman and others, it appears near-Beverage performance is possible on normal-size lots. Exalted carrier, IF filters, DSP and other techniques can be employed to work on noise and adjacent channel interference, so, in combination, our horizons can be expanded. We'll never get back to those Monday morning windows when, for example, 950 was completely clear for a couple of hours so we could tape LR3 in Argentina and 2UE in Australia QRMing one another, or on 890 where Colombia and Algeria were weaving in and out... but with Asia and the Pacific on split frequencies now, I'm not convinced I'll be unable to hear at least some exotic DX in the next few years as sunspots diminish and my equipment is optimized.Willis Monk <wb5khd@inet75.com>: I just wanted to get in on this thread of hard places to hear.

1. From Texas the following states were NEVER heard.....All states not listed were logged.New Hampshire, Vermont, New Jersey, Montana, Alaska.2. From the present QTH of Collegedale, TN- the following states have NOT been heard, yet.

Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Montana, Washington, Oregon, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Idaho, Alaska, Hawaii

3. Countries Heard from Texas QTH...USA, Canada, Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, NicaraguaEl Salvador, Costa Rica, Panama, Cuba, Haiti, Dominican Republic Jamaica, Netherlands Antilles, Bahamas, Bermuda, Trinidad Venezuela, Colombia, Brazil, Australia, United Kingdom France, Iran

4. Countries heard from present QTH, Collegedale, TN...... USA, Canada, Mexico, Cuba Bahamas, Colombia, Costa Rica, Jamaica France

Patrick Martin <mwdxer@webtv.net>: Hi: Yes, the days of "everybody off" are gone, except for a few like KDWN-720-Las Vegas that is still off MM's. KCBS-740-SF was off SM's until the last couple of years. All the CBC powerhouses were off at Midnight not that many years ago, but that is gone now. I also remember the 60s/70s when the two stations on 970 on MMs were FL and ME. Everyone was off on the West Coast. On poor conditions MM's, you could go from dead channel to dead channel. Lots of LAs like Colombia on 540, 1000, etc. Ahh, the good ol' days when a communications receiver wasn't needed.

David Gleason <amdavid@pacbell.net>: 1660 is definitely the best bet for Puerto Rico. It is on an irregular schedule from what I was told this morning, but should be 24/7 after they officially inaugurate the station.

Interestingly, back in the early 60's when I DXed form NE Ohio, the easiest PR was WIVV on Vieques. This 1 kW station signed on at 5 AM local time when 1370 was totally clear, the last Californian (KEEN) having gone away at midnight. PR was sometimes 100% in the clear at 4AM ELT. After that, there were no easy catches, although the next one I heard was WITA-1140 with 500 watts nondirectional, also at 4AM EST before WRVA signed back on after the Monday morning maintenance period. And, of course, I did not know I would be the GM of this station 15 years later!

Also heard back then from PR: WISA-1390, WABA-850, WIPR-940, WIAC-740, WMDD-1480, WAPA-680 all at early AST sign on. The only non-sign on catch I made from PR was AFRTS-780 at Ramey AFB after WBBM signed off making this 50 watter my best miles to power catch.

At present, the new WAPA-680 transmitter site very near the North coast of PR, offers the best chance for PR in most places. 580 is now directional away from. 940 may be possible, as they are still running 1 kW non-directional until they find a new site... they lost towers in the hurricane nearly 3 years ago and have not rebuilt the DA system. 740 at it's new site is sending even less RF to the US.

Next we tackle the subject of noise…and it’s inherent ability to ruin the pursuit of our hobby! There has been a lot of information on noise sources in DXNews this year, and it will probably continue to be a hot topic. One of the biggest frustrations I have is on my (relatively short) 15 minute commute – once I get into the City all the major roads are lined with electric lines that are ridiculously noisy. Anything other than the two local stations is inaudible – that can ruin in-car DXing. Bruce’s initial post included below was near the end of a discussion that drfited into this topic.

Bruce Conti: Phasing is not required for the purpose of eliminating noise when a noise-reduced antenna wire is used. With two noise-reduced wires, you can use phasing for its intended purpose, to produce a cardioid/single-direction reception pattern or phase null interfering radio stations.

Russ Edmunds <wb2bjh@nrcdxas.org>: But that setup wouldn't preclude noise radiating from an adjacent computer from getting directly into the receiver either through the air or through the power lines, which is, I suspect, where Fred was going with that.

Frederick R. Vobbe <fredv@nrcdxas.org>: I guess I don't understand how your loop (or whatever) is combined with the wire used for noise canceling to rid yourself of the noise. If it works good I would like to try it here in server city.

Bruce Conti: It's not noise canceling, it's noise reduction. Noise cancellation is accomplished by phasing out the noise. The receiving antenna is phased with a noise pick-up antenna. The noise reduction system doesn't allow the noise to be received by isolating the antenna from any short-range noise sources such as TVs or internal house wiring.

A wire antenna is located at least 20 feet from any potential radiated noise source, such as a house or utility lines. The antenna is connected to one of the high impedance legs of a 4:1 RF matching transformer. The other high impedance leg is connected to ground via a ground rod and/or ground radials. (This transformer is also located at least 20 feet from potential noise sources.) Lead-in to the receiver is 20+ feet of buried coax. The low impedance legs of the transformer are attached across the coax, to the coax center pin and shield. Note that most if not all of the commercially available matching transformers made for amateur radio or shortwave do not have isolated grounds. For this to work, the receiver ground and the antenna ground must be isolated. Either wind your own toroidal transformer, or buy Mini-Circuits models T4-1 or T4-6.

For more information on this method of noise reduction, see the February 1999 edition of Popular Communications magazine, or the Target DX column in the September 22, 1997 edition of the NRC's DX News magazine.

Bruce Conti: A noise-reduced antenna won't allow radiated emissions in the house to be received. Conducted emissions are another problem. If conducted emissions are determined to be the problem, then the receiver would have to be operated by battery to full isolate it from the noise source. I have a deep-cycle marine gel cell battery that I keep on standby for power outages and if conducted emissions occur. Typically, conducted emissions will only be a problem with old equipment such as old TVs or computers. Modern equipment should meet FCC and CE (European Community) requirements for conducted emissions and immunity. Noise that comes from the electric company lines is a typical source of conducted emissions. Conducted emissions are signals that travel down power lines. Radiated emissions are signals that travel through the air. A noise-reduced antenna requires that the wire be located at least 20 feet from any potential radiated noise source, including utility lines, the neighbor's house, and your house.

I have written many times here and in DX News about noise-reduced antenna systems. It's my belief that this is the single most important thing you can do to reduce noise levels and hear weak signals at home. Someday I'll do another comparison of reception with and without noise reduction on the DXAS. The difference is amazing! I can DX with the computer running in the same room and receive no interference, in addition to having the TV on in the next room. The only interference problem I experience from time to time is noise from the electric company power lines, especially during wet weather and mostly on longwave.

Neil Kazaross: As one who recently has been hit by often horrendous powerline noise as the lines along Hwy 59 which borders my property are now extremely noisy over a 2 mile stretch...what is the solution to this DX hindrance?

Bob Carter <KC4QLP@aol.com>: A rocket launcher aimed at the power lines and a generator! LOL...ok, just kidding...I couldn’t resist the comment…Call your power company and explain what the trouble is and have someone come out to your location. They may find an insulator that is breaking down or some other thing that is about to fail. Keep in mind and make sure that the power company has in their mind is that they must keep noise from power lines down...or the FCC can get involved in this also. I don’t remember which rule it is, but it is in there. Good Luck!

Russ Edmunds: Most power companies have at least one person on their technical staff who specializes in interference complaints. In many cases, that person also is a ham operator, who will understand the issues involved. Try to locate that person. If you have a problem or want to make sure before you call, find a local amateur radio club, preferably an established one which serves multibands. There will almost certainly be someone there who will have experience with such problems and can either help you themselves or perhaps point you toward the right person at the power company.

John Tudenham <w0jrp@earthlink.net>: Saturday night when I heard WTIC I had my Hewlett Packard computer going 5 feet away from my barefoot Superadio 2 which was on batteries and no interference on 1080 khz.

Robert Foxworth: When I was living on Long Island, the department to call was Special Services. It probably has different names with other companies. The rep would come out, usually by appointment and bring an ultrasonic receiver which picked up audio at about 40 kHz and converted it to acoustic audio. It used a very directional super-sonic mike and from the ground, the operator could identify on which cross-bar on the pole the arcing insulator was located. Then a bucket truck would be sent out and the guys usually could fix it 'hot'. The amateur radio club contact is excellent advice.

Craig Healy, Ng1u <ng1u@chowdanet.com>: Use a good portable like the Radio Shack TRF and see if you can isolate it down to a bad transformer or insulator. Then call the power company. Often they have someone who is good at this sort of thing. You'd be doing them a favor, as those noisy parts often are failure points. Be pleasant, but persistent. And ham operators nearby? Sometimes two or more people calling about the same trouble has much more impact.

Kevin Redding: I am interested in this. I live in TV noise HELL. I have my antennas fed by coax and 20 feet away and running on batteries and the noise is still awful. I have everything grounded and it still s*cks.

Frederick R. Vobbe: It would be interesting to do some demo audios as MP3 or.RA files. On this property there is 14 computers running, plus the stuff with processors like my KAM3+, scanners, there are 3 TVs, a transmitter at 540 kHz *, one at 99.3 MHz *, then there is an FM on 97.7 running 6 kW about a half a mile north, and some silly NBC TV station about.75 miles east smoking out 661 kW on channel 35. Then the landlord has stuff running on 145.57 mHz, 2.4 gHz, and 5.8 gHz, plus the HF and VHF/UHF ham rigs. It's no wonder the AM radios around get desensed! Seriously, if I could get rid of the computer noise, I would be very happy. That is what's killing me. Oh, the * means, don't ask questions. <grin>

Kevin Redding: I have a.wav file of KRLD with the noise reducing antenna and without on Werner Funkenhauser's site. For me to get any DX is a miracle. Try this... http://home.inforamp.net/~funk/slinkant.html. Its a real short clip but you can see the noise hell I live with. I have the antenna with the grounds and then I remove the ground from the shield of the noise reducing antenna and you can hear what I deal with. The noise reduction does work. It just doesn't work enough to make me happy. Between the TV and the guy with the spark gap arc welder it ain't all that great. There is a drawing on the site. There should be two grounds instead of one. There should be one at each end of the shield on the coax.

Neil Kazaross: I suggest asking Mark C or Bruce for some details of the noise reduction scheme. As for TVI hets...you may need a semi-pro type RX like a R8A etc, and tighten the filter and use the sideband away from the TVI. Thanks for advise on calling electric company as this noise has shattered what used to be near extreme quiet. I agree on bad insulators as things got bad after a blizzard of heavy wet snow.

Rick Kenneally: On this topic, my radio room is near our oil-fired furnace. When the furnace is running, I get quite a bit of static. Also, it seems that the forced hot water circulators that run the heated water through the baseboard registers also generate static. When the circulators are running, I get static that is lower in volume but similar to the furnace. Moving the radio room is not really an option. Anybody have experience with this? I can guess why the burner would generate noise, but I don't get why the circulators would. Does it have something to do with the thermostat? What can I do to reduce the RFI being generated by the furnace & associated parts? Thanks!

Benjamin Dangerfield <ben-dangerfield@worldnet.att.net>: The subject of noise pops up periodically, doesn't it? Here, in Wallingford, outside of TVI and computer interference, [neither of which is much of a problem anymore], noise generally means a 60 cycle type buzz [or similar sound] that usually hits the LW band the most, then the low end of the MW band, and then is not too noticeable until around the 1100's after which it decreases, and seldom bothers the upper band frequencies. Any noise I get comes and goes from one day to another but I would say is off more than it is on. Some I know, is from nearby power lines, and some has been traced to neighbors' light sensors. None comes from our house. The electric company has cooperated in the past. Do others' buzzes behave in the same way? Is the LW band the worst?

Lee Reynolds <lreynolds@cyberportal.net>: I've been busy in my work room recently seeing what's so darn noisy. (I live in a fairly isolated rural location and the nearest BC station is 7+ miles away so I know I've introduced most of my problems myself.....) I do a lot of VLF/LF tinkering so noise is even more of a problem than on AM. Now that I own a reasonable portable at last (YB-400), I just tuned the thing to various frequencies where I was hearing noise on the main receivers and did some df'ing. Number one source of RFI (to reception) in the shack are the fluorescent displays in the NRD-525s. Even when powered off, they still generate noise. Number two is the 1250 Watt APC UPS that all the computers are fed by. Number three is the 10/100 Ethernet hub. Number four is the ISDN router. Number five is the laser printer. Monitors are amongst the quieter devices because I replaced the old Van der Graaf generators I used with new TCO99 and MPR-II compliant monitors. The monitors used to be MAJOR noise generators. The computer system units (3) themselves aren't too bad, surprisingly enough.

The message here is that computers and radios don't live together even slightly well as a rule. I may choose to spend a huge amount of time working on making everything as quiet as I can (which almost certainly won't be enough!) but if I really want to listen seriously I power off (and in some cases unplug because being powered down is no guarantee that the device isn't generating noise) every computer-related object in the room. If I need a computer then, that's what the laptop is for...

Russ Edmunds: First off, I want to refer folks to the column I did in Target DX on this topic which saw print a couple of months ago. In it, I covered some basic steps to identify noise sources and, where reasonable, how to deal with them. I deliberately avoided the technicalities of the topic of noise-reduced antennas, owing to the basic thrust of the column, plus the fact that the subject had been cover in the same column when Bruce edited it a couple of years back. If I had a scanner, I'd scan his article and have Fred post it on the website. That said, however, I could send a photocopy and Fred could do the rest, since this seems to be a popular topic.

But, a reminder - regular readers of this list will quickly note that every mention Bruce has made about noise-reduced antennas has said that they need to be 20 feet away from the building and any other noise sources. He says this for a reason, but, alas, for a number of us, that just isn't possible - locations of trees with respect to buildings, paved areas, patios, bushes etc. being among them.

And, Kevin, I'm glad to know that I'm not the only one with a neighbor with one of those old spark-gap arc welders <g>!

Michael P Battaglino <Michael_P_Battaglino@newyorklife.com>: Hello All, I have been following the Noise thread with much interest--as always. It seems that there is never enough space available to talk about this topic!! As Gerry Thomas termed it to me in an e-mail: "noise--the bane of every DXer!"

But I digress . . . I can really resonate with Ben's comments - I have a very similar sort of noise problem - the "buzz" for me is at its worst at the low end of the band--and probably across the LW frequencies if I ever get around to checking it out. It usually is gone by the time I hit the middle of the band--around the 1000's or so. I can null it out and phase it out with the Quantum/Phaser, but only so much. It does kind of scre wthings up on the lower frequencies. As such the WGAI test was very difficult to copy, as you can imagine.

I highly recommend the "walk-around-your property-and-house-with a portable radio" experiment. You'd be amazed at how you can begin to discover and eliminate sources of noise. For me, I'm pretty sure it's the power line to my house. On the pole right out front in the corner of the house where I have my shack is a transformer. When I stood underneath that the other night the noise was quite intense. It helped me eliminate what I originally thought was the culprit--my neighbor's halogen lights!

I appreciate the posts about the utility companies and how to approach them since I'll be moving to a new home in June and may need their assistance. Hey--what a great way to meet the new neighbors--wandering around my property with a radio and headphones pointing it at different things!

Kevin Redding: They'll really think you're special when you tell them how their touch lamp is interfering with DX and they have to replace it. :-)

Frederick R. Vobbe: Then you find out it's really the neighbor's invisible fence. He gets mad when you tell him it's causing interference and turns it off. Moments later, two Dobermans have one of each or your cheeks in their mouth as you running home screaming like you heard a 100 watt IBA station from the UK somewhere in Nebraska. Yeah, it's graphic, but I'm in TV.

Tracing this stuff can also be a pain. I've found on those (&^$(&^ bell insulators that AEP uses, that when I'm walking the pole line you will get a peak, and as you go to the next pole the signal drops. However if you keep going in the same direction you will get yet another peak and even perhaps 6 dB plus or minus the first.

Last time I had this problem the noise seemed to be due east. But when I went back there I started walking the line south and found the problem about 750 feet from where I started.

Mark Durenberger <Mark@durenberger.com>: The one that makes me the most crazy always shows up when I'm really reaching for sensitivity. The noise is never 750 feet away either. It turns out to be one of those damn little wall-wart transformer supplies that runs the phasor or some other electronics!

So: A "Bruce Conti"-type hint: Before you go looking for interference too far away from your loop antenna, try moving the antenna right up next to these little guys; even if they're powering something that's "non-radio." You may be surprised.