Gary, I live in a antenna restrictive neighborhood and I have to hide my three antennas. I can't get much height and at the most 22 feet. I made a contact to Australia on 400 watts and I couldn't get over the noise. When I increased my power to 1500 watts, I was giving them a 5/5. I only run the amp late at night when everyone's asleep and I normally run 100 watts during the daytime. When I bought my home I wasn't a ham at the time so I wasn't worried about antenna restrictions. But I have adapted and can talk all over the world now.
Another factor I've noticed is noise over here especially the static crashes on 75 meters. I also noticed that no one will come back to me unless I crank up the power. There are too many people running 1500 watts + and can't get a word in edge wise or be head in between transmissions. 100 watts over here is like using a walkie talkie at least for me. Now, when I was talking to that Australia station, she was running 400 watts and I was running 1500 watts. We were both giving each other the same signal strength of a 5/5. You can only do so much with a stealth antenna before you compensate with more power. In the area where I live, we all have a very high noise level. There is a lot of industry around us. There are times I have to tell the station to increase power so I can understand them. All kind of crazy stuff going on here. I get a lot of neighborhood noise from the street lamps and transformers. I also hear a lot of noise from all the industries around here. -- View this message in context: http://n2.nabble.com/Elecraft-Amps-tp4558598p4617317.html Sent from the Elecraft mailing list archive at Nabble.com. ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
