Hello L.C.
And to all who may be keeping up with this thread,"God help you". Yes, I've been playing off & on for about 35 years now. I currently own about 7 guitars but may sell a couple on Ebay soon to fund this IMAX dilemma I've been having. LOL!
Ya know what? as far as you've been hanging in here with me through all of this, I really have to hand it to ya. I cannot thank you enough.
OK, I'm going to make this a short one today, but as of yesterday, I was able to get my 8" PVC pipe cut down to 3 1/2" wide now. Perfect for 4 to 6 turns of the LMR-400. Nice job actually & I was able to smooth the edges nicely on my Father's belt sander. The pipe was too big to cut on a band saw & very dangerous if your saw blade is not a fine tooth one. So please! anyone attempting this, I'll tell ya right now to just use masking tape around the pipe, drill a pilot hole and use a simple Jig Saw with a (FINE TOOTH) blade. It will cut nicely like butter.
So I'm all set except this Delrin Rod Thingy. But I have a set of Vernier Calipers now and will measure the inside Diameter of my 1 1/4" mast pipe. As soon as I can get the rod one foot or ten inches inside my mast, I will be doing all of the modifications that we have been talking about here.
Before I go, I wanted to share with you my efforts yesterday. I totally removed the Ground Cable from my Neutral Service Ground & From my Mast, and from my equipment. Still that horrible Hum on all channels but the noisiest on 5, 6, & 7.
I unhooked the Coax from my radio. No hum, but still some static like it was still coming through my mains. I used my AM transistor radio & this hum is definitely coming from my Mains from the house. When I hold this radio up to the glass on the Meter outside, the AM radio hums, (The same 60Hz Hum!). When I hold the Radio up to my circuit breakers in the box, (The same hum).
But L.C., How about when I only used my Car battery as the power supply? I still got that hum. Why?
Maybe I still had my Ground cable hooked up? I cannot recall.
So I will try the car battery once more while I have the Ground Cable disconnected.
It doesn't get any worse than this does it?
Oh yeah! all day again yesterday, I am getting this (Star Wars Light Sabre) noise drifting in & out. All DAY LONG! ON MY SUNDAY! it's like I said before, like someone who works first shift & is home on the weekend with their car alarm armed or something, as this interference is gone in the early mornings & every afternoon as long as it's Mon - Fri.
Oh yeah, I thought I would tell you that as I am DXing, I use the RF gain all the way up, But even if I turn it almost off, Still the hum.
So I'm hoping the Balun & GPK will help me somehow. Or maybe better yet, the better shielded LMR-400 coax that I'm about to put on is what I should say here.
All I'm waiting for is to get the Delrin rod turned down so I can commence on all of these modifications. And the Weather to settle down.
(When your down & out, everyone wants to screw ya) :bdh:
