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Computer Noise

M

Marathon Don

Guest
What are you folks doing to minimize computer noise (other than turning them off). I have 4 PC's in my shack along with a network switch and a printer. AM DXing is almost impossible in this environment. The printer (an H-P networkable unit) and the wall wart for an external USB hard drive seem to be to the worst offenders.

Don
 
Marathon Don said:
What are you folks doing to minimize computer noise (other than turning them off). I have 4 PC's in my shack along with a network switch and a printer. AM DXing is almost impossible in this environment. The printer (an H-P networkable unit) and the wall wart for an external USB hard drive seem to be to the worst offenders.

Don
Click to expand...

I just shut them down. Laptops are not as bad, but desktops are really noisy - so are monitors. LCD displays are better. But for any serious DX'ing, even on FM, I have to shut down the network.
 
I keep the computers far, far away from the radios.

I put the musicserver for my pt 15 AM way in a back room, and use a network linked remote control program on a laptop to run the music
from the radio/music/studio area remotely. I didn't want the fan noise or RF noise. I use 40 feet of shielded cable to bring the audio over.

The lap top doesn't put out too much noise. The power supplies for most computers is a worse offender than the computer itself.
If I'm really digging for weak sigs, the computers go off.
 
Basically, I turn all my equipment off. Unfortunately, on the other hand this really has little effect as far as noise is concerned, but it does save a bit of electricity and wear on components. The neighbours on the other side of the wall have a TV set that seems to stay on 24/7. And my neighbour below me has a computer that seems to stay on 24/7, as well as possibly the noisiest flourescent lights ever produced in the entire history of manufacturing.

(Oh yeah, Clark County PUD reportedly uses a BPL-type system for power metre telemetry. Over most of the MW broadcast band here in Vancouver, you can hear a loud, constant wideband buzzing noise obliterating most of MW and Shortwave.)

Usually when I want to dig for really deep MW or FM signals in a relatively quiet environment, I'll go to the neighbourhood park just down the street. They have a covered picnic area which makes it good for DXing if the weather happens to be nasty.
 
I have only 1 PC but a CRT Monitor, 14 inch CRT TV and a satellite TV box. My prised Eton E5 becomes as deaf as a normal radio and my amateur radio has carriers all over the place on 2M (144-146 MHz here in the UK for non hams) shame because if there are lifts I can't ID stations or use the Log which is computer based. Ony choice like most of you is to put everything off or go into the other room with the Eton. Then i can sometimes get stations on FM .1 MHz apart
 
For AM, I unplug the power strip used for my computer, our wireless network, etc. Annoying, but I've been too lazy to find a better solution.

For FM, the computer is a crucial part of my setup (for recording) and doesn't generate much noise at all on the FM band, so I leave it on. Occasionally, I'll unplug the ethernet cable running from my Linksys router to my PC, as it generates a fair amount of noise on the FM band (but not so much that it makes DXing impossible - I really only unplug it when the signal I want is very weak). Odd that with an internet setup consisting of a wireless router and a wireless internet modem (Clearwire) the component producing the noise is the wired ethernet jack on the router.
 
kc0ltv said:
For AM, I unplug the power strip used for my computer, our wireless network, etc. Annoying, but I've been too lazy to find a better solution.

For FM, the computer is a crucial part of my setup (for recording) and doesn't generate much noise at all on the FM band, so I leave it on. Occasionally, I'll unplug the ethernet cable running from my Linksys router to my PC, as it generates a fair amount of noise on the FM band (but not so much that it makes DXing impossible - I really only unplug it when the signal I want is very weak). Odd that with an internet setup consisting of a wireless router and a wireless internet modem (Clearwire) the component producing the noise is the wired ethernet jack on the router.
Click to expand...

I used to have the same problem with my Linksys router until I checked all the cables and replaced a couple. Now I hardly get any interference on AM or FM from the router.

What I have to unplug is my DVD Player. It causes more interference on AM than the router or any other electronic device in my house.
 
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