Hello Jim,
Thanks for the interesting read of your station :-)
Am 25.09.2016 09:11, schrieb James Cowburn:
PC is a Dell
Studio 1749 running WSPR 2.12.
I can really recommend the use of the new WSJT-X v1.7.0 software which
includes WSPR-2. At least for reception it improves things.
It does have a tendency
to fight with our cheap home broadband router supplied by British
Telecom, resulting in the "Orange Light of Death" and subsequent grief
from XYL and 2 teenagers as their Netflix/Music stream/Online gaming
has just fallen over! Ferrite toroids have been spectacularly
unsuccessful in remedying this. The best solution has been to try to
run the CAT5 cables in my office as perpendicular to the coax feed and
line of roof top wire as possible to minimise pick up and cross talk,
but this hasn't really been that effective either.
What about WLAN / wifi?
A bigger issue on Rx is
the noise pick up from both Dell (genuine kit and not cheap copies
either, which is annoying!) PSUs that feed the Studio and the XPS17
which is my main office PC. On batteries, I get about S1-3 of noise
which is very good, but as soon as the PSU's are used and are under
"load" then this rockets up to S7-9! If they are powered on, but not
driving the laptops i.e. disconnected, then they have no impact. I'm
wondering if it is the load that makes them noisier or whether the
whole laptop acts as an augmented antenna when they are connected to it?
Does the QRM become lower when disconnecting the CAT5 / LAN cable? Some
years ago i observed some common mode QRM just by a notebook, its
supply and a connected LAN cable. If you take use WLAN instead, you may
have lower QRM and also do not disturb the LAN traffic.
I've tried putting them
in shielded earthed metal boxes (biscuit tins!) with no effect.
(biscuits were nice though!). Similarly, stacked ferrite toroids on
the mains inputs and DC power out have had zero impact. They both have
a very bright blue LED on the power cable whereas older units for my
Dell D610/20 series did not have this "bauble" and were much quieter,
but also were lower rated at 60W or 90W as opposed to these beasts
which are around 120W to 150W, and run alarmingly warm at times!
If it is no common mode problem with the LAN cable i would try to
switch a pi-network in front of the power supply, on the 230V side. 2x
1 uF (e.g. WIMA MP3-X2 250VAC) and then a iron powder choke (e.g.
T106-26) with many turns of 0.5mm cu wire, two windings,
"anti-parallel".
73, Stefan
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