Yes, the noise gets louder with the RF gain pegged all the way up. Less when I turn it down. But I still leave it all the way up for the same reason you do. I'll get one of those Walkie Talkie Cbs when I get a chance & try playing detective around the block if I can find a decent one.
As for my progress on my Imax, there hasn't been any this week due to my job schedule and mostly because of the bad weather here. It rained all this past week & has been cold. 22 degrees this Sunday morning & only in the 40's today. Plus, to totally tire me out, I've been working on my van all week replacing the right drive axle assembly & front motor mount. Aside from a few pulled shoulder muscles and a knot on top of my left shoulder, I did manage to get outside today before it got dark.
I re-connected the mast's ground cable, and hooked it back up to the House's service ground, ground bar. I also ran twin cables from this Neutral service house ground rod to the other seperate ground rod I was using. I also hooked up the equipment ground cable to the hous'e service ground. Yes, they are all tied together now to the house's service ground as the NEC says to do. So I thought you'd be happy to hear this.
As for the noise, it's still there, but I think it dropped a 1/2 db or so. The noise seems to not be as bad now as well. I did not hear the star wars light sabre sound today either. Perhaps, if it was a car alarm, they were nowhere in my vacinity today. So I was happy.
The skip came early today. I'd say around 10:00am or so & lasted all the way to 9:45pm or so before it disappeared again. I talked briefly to a guy from Cape Cod Massatuchetts and he told me I was loud & clear. I heard guys from Texas, West Virginia, Canada/New York border, Georgia, and Florida to boot. Being able to talk to people at these distances amazes me. Even with this P.O.C. Imax. I know the skip allows us to talk at these distances, but as I mentioned before, my President/Zachary T. Base radio has been re-worked and modified to go beyond the 40 channels, Has new caps, two high power caps installed in it. It has new seating compound for the caps and all the knobs have been cleaned. It also has a power increase knob installed in it. Allowing me a full 10 watts. So it's been fun lately when I'm DXing in the skip.
I still don't know everything about this unit yet, but I will in time. So for now, I have all my grounds tied to the house ground. I must admit, I do not see any increase in noise. But I do see a positive decrease in the noise level. When the weather gets a bit warmer I'm going to make my move with taking the Imax back down for all the modifications. I will also try to improve my SWR a bit. I know they say that 1.4 to even 2.5 is good, but I know better than that. Heck, with my old Astroplane, I got a constant 1.1 believe it or not. So I'm hoping I can tune this 2000 a bit better. Currently, I'm still getting a good 1.4 on my SWR.
Well, it's getting late & I'm working 1st shift today. The skip has been gone for an hour or so now & the locals are chatting on channel 10. We've got a few guys up here across the border into Kenosha/Racine WI who talk regulary every night. So I'm going to listen for a few and hit the hay.
Hope everyone had a great weekend.
James
