Hi Karl Let me add a not specific for 160m, the high noise level is related to 95% of the time. Yes, it is very noisy everywhere, however the other 5% is very interesting. During winter mornings 160m is the quietest band on HF, because on 160m the only natural noise is atmospheric noise. Summertime you see the 95%, but most of the DX is during winter on the North hemisphere. There is a very important note about the man-made noise, the ground propagation works like a filter and 99% of the noise you receive is vertical polarized. It is possible to reduce almost to 20 db using a horizontal antennas. I visited over 50 stations during the installation of the HWF, very few has adequate ground and isolation for common mode noise,. There are over 20 things you need to consider achieving the 20 db reduction in noise and you must pay attention to all of them. My point is that the 5% of the time is very important for 160m propagation. Man made noise is increasing but also very different from 20 years ago; Like solar panels, EV charges . LED streetlights All the above peak in different times during the day and night. Solar panel noise during the night is veery low, Streetlight is a problem during the night, like most cities on Latin America where the regulation allows LED with no EMC filters, very noisy ended.
73's JC N4IS -----Original Message----- From: Topband <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Carl Luetzelschwab via Topband Sent: Saturday, June 13, 2026 08:57 To: topBand List <[email protected]> Subject: Re: Topband: 160m Past, Present and Future Topbanders, This is supplemental data to Jim K9YC's post about increased noise. Here's a summary of the level of old man-made noise data (from ITU Noise document in the 1970s) and new man-made noise data (from IEEE Trans EMC 2019 - this paper is attached) in a residential noise environment and in a rural noise environment. Remember that -73 dBm is by convention S9 (but that doesn't necessarily mean your receiver is set to that value). residential rural *160m* *80m* *160m* *80m* old data -82 dBm -88 dBm -87 dBm -94 dBm new data -72 dBm -80 dBm -82 dBm -90 dBm 160m has an approximate 10 dB increase in man-made noise in a residential noise environment and an approximate 5 dB increase in man-made noise in a rural noise environment. 80m has an approximate 8 dB increase in man-made noise in a residential noise environment and an approximate 4 dB increase in man-made noise in a rural noise environment. In a quiet rural noise environment, there is not much difference in old data versus new data. These values support the trends that are reported. Realize that the actual values will likely vary a bit. Carl K9LA On Thu, Jun 11, 2026 at 11:27 PM Jim Brown via Topband < [email protected]> wrote: > On 6/11/2026 5:56 PM, Richard (Rick) Karlquist wrote: > > At least on the USA West Coast, 160 meter contest activity is > > greatly reduced vs 10 years ago, especially for the 160 meter only contests. > > I attribute it to 1) the total disinterest by the vast majority of ops > east of the Mississippi in doing anything but work the Atlantic basin, > with TX and RX antennas to support these priorities. So all we have to > contest with are those NA stations who can't work EU (East coast wall > or otherwise), and DX from SA, OC, and AS, with not nearly enough > mults to put us in the game. > > 2) The greatly increasing noise levels on both ends of the QSO. As > I've observed in other threads, I don't hear EU on CW anymore, and > that's for ten years or so. Noise is now hurting into AS -- my NE and > SE Beverage face strong noise sources. The SE source never goes to > sleep, the NE does -- it's probably power and/or home entertainment > tied to human activity. This is true on all bands -- I used to be able > copy the little guns and even the pop-guns from JA on the higher bands. No > more. > > The guys at N6RO report greatly increasing noise. > > 73, Jim K9YC > _________________ Searchable Archives: http://www.contesting.com/_topband - Topband Reflector
