N1NTE - Holland, MA

Propagation has been up and down lately. There has been a sharp increase in 11 meter (CB Radio) activity in the last week. Very interesting to hear as the upper frequencies have not been overly active.

Growing veggies and am using an electronic thermostat to control the seedling heat mat. Some minor RFI is being emitted in the 6-7 MHz range from the thermostat. This should subside before the end of May. Thanks for your patience. :) UPDATE: The RFI is no longer a problem!

Get lots of questions about the antenna. Here is a link to it at Palomar Engineers . It is a terrific antenna and is also great for transmitting on the ham bands. Here is the SWR plot for it when used for transmitting: I confirmed this plot with an antenna analyzer after it was mounted at 65 ft. high and it was very close. The antenna is about 130 feet long and is supported on both ends as well as the center.

To help solve the 41 meter (7300-7500 kHz) shortwave transmitter overload a quarter wave stub has been inserted to help attenuate just that part of the band. More info here . The filter is wide so there is affects frequencies +/- 10% of the design frequency. The further away from the design frequency, the less the attenuation. The filter has improved the overload issue and is only a minor inconvenience on the 40 meter ham band.

The receiver's location is very good and the receiver is getting some overload from a couple of high powered shortwave broadcasters in the 41 meter band (7300-7300 kHz). This will cause distortion across the whole 0-32 MHz spectrum when the signal gets to 60 dB over S9. A 20 dB attenuator has inserted as a brute force workaround. A better solution will be coming soon.