This is one of the three ferrites which I rescued from the trash heap at one of my previous jobs:
I am now assuming that the reason that they were on the trash heap in the first place is because the plastic clasps that locks these things closed were broken on two of them. But hey, that's nothing a little electrical tape can't cure!
I put all three on the coax going to the W3EDP just where the coax leaves my antenna switch. They are lined up, bumper-to- bumper, like their own little traffic jam.
I had no idea if this was going to make a difference or not, but boy howdy! Did it ever!
This is photo of the KX3 on an unoccupied frequency on 40 Meters after I put the ferrites in place:
Look at the S Meter. No bars! Before deploying the ferrites, I had S 3-4 noise. Now there's nothing, and ...... that's with the pre-amp ON! But oh baby! Looking at this photo made me realize that have to hit that glass and front panel with some Windex. It doesn't look that bad in real life, but the photo really shows it like I've never noticed before. Maybe another set of SideKX are in order to keep this radio cleaner and devoid of basement dust.
But I digress. I've checked the other bands, and except for 80 Meters, all the hash seems to be under control. Even if it should increase an S unit. I'd still be happy.
I'm going to have to get a couple more of these from somewhere and see if they'll make a bigger difference on 80 Meters. I've gone down from S5 to S3 on the background noise. It would be nice to get that lower.
72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least!
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