@500kpot - Thank you...Well, it was a Miracle she was even alive this long. There are times for pain of the loss - but right now I see that there may be more than one type of problem in this thread
- - Ferrites on their Hair Dryers! I have to make a mental note of that when it comes to her discussions about the Electric Bill ...
@TXRiverRat - let's see if any of this (suggestions below) might help - these are only suggestions and possible causes - so since you did say you had noticed different results in the different antennas - I did find something in your vid that you mentioned but no one else seems to notice...I'll touch on that at the end...
IF you can, though , I really do recommend that you re-read this post - before you take any action for the ideas expressed here-I'm attempting to condense into a single post for you reading later.
So I have to add this (amongst several) a possible thinking point., because I blew it when you mentioned both antennas are BASE antennas. So this may be more from what others have suggested in routing onto location. You did mention you have "snapping" noises as you arrive to the house so this usually indicates that you are close if Not, ARE the source of this noise. Now, the antenna problems may not be from poor coax, but if you had to make a breakpoint so you can bring the coax inside thru the wall - you may need to re-think the entry. I'm simply referring to how you may have bonded the coax and how well the system is shielding itself in case you developed a ground loop current and you're hearing it's ambient noise level as it flows thru the radios chassis, thru the coax braid and out to the antennas and their ground location - you may have inadvertently added more grounding - but at the cost of sending or routing power from the poorly grounded outlets in the home thru your equipment into the better or more safer grounding system the antennas provide - a simple, yet noisy - Ground Loop.
Let's go...
Lighting - possible - a poor or bad LED module that "flickers" - this is a rate game. IF you can spot flicker in a light or lamp that uses either CFL or LED - the "sputter" is from the "winking" event crashing into the noise level of the radio.
- LED's are simple doped diodes that when they "ignite" or emit their light - a type of oscillation event occurs - this is the launch and recombining effects of the photons (Emitted) - and phonon's (failed to emit) emission. Amber LED as well as some White LED chips are noisier than other basic types - their construction varies widely, Chip On Board (COB) onto the individual lamp T-13/4 et. al. - and although hard to track down, they cannot be repaired easily - replacement is usually the only option. But to help, these events can be caused their junctions receiving the inrush of current into the device thru a thin wire that touches the "Die" or chip but thru either a construction problems or purity issue, the chip can "warp" from the initial uptake of power thru the device. This places so much physical stress on the chip - it "jumps" a physical event that turns into a noise crash from the avalanche noise as the junction conducts and stops then repeats.
- CFL are Fluorescents - and their "sputter" can be caused by the re-igniting of the ballast. This is usually an assembly issue where the lamp is loose in the epoxied socket the tube is soldered-on and set into to hold it for the rest of it's service life. It's like the lamp lights but the "spark gap" sensor never senses the change in the impedance of the gas as it goes from cold start to ionized on conduction. Heck, even the epoxy itself can have holes develop from air pockets and a carbon trail can form thru them causing an audible "snap" that can be heard from the jump the charge makes to ground as a spark gap measure
This can also go into the banes of Schottky-device and their inherited noises caused by the bonding of the doping region to sandwich to the other non-silicon (or similarly doped) material. Many of us here have taken on this matter in various threads about Receive Mods - so I'll spare my feelings (Rants or otherwise) about the Blessings of The Diodes - Germanium versus Silicon versus Schottky - I just wish they came with Geraniums' - it would being more women into this field enlarging the resources we'd have of material (SEE:Humus) - Thank You Very Mulch...
This last section is the one that you mentioned that I did not catch earler - so too - I am just as guilty but I offer more potential solutions that are dependent on the level of skills you have to fix this or the tech that did this tune up - either way this may require more internal work to that radio.
I'm sure many us out here remember the Cobra and even the Cherokee Radios that used a Backlight to light up the front panel. They used Electroluminescent panels that required a higher voltage to light up. So they designed "buck" converters to raise the DC battery voltage to an AC value of about 40 to 60 volts - just enough to light the panel but not to the point of causing electrocution.
When you work on these units, you have to REROUTE the EL backplane harness (that EL flat strip) EXACTLY as you removed it so you can keep the noise it can generate from ruining your receive.
What does this have to do with you? It may be more of the re-assembly of the radio after the tune up. Do you have a way of turning off that Frequency Counter? I mean, can you remove the panels and disconnect the harness to it so you can turn it off, make it dead?
Why?
Now I know why SP5IT posted that pic...
I've had to fix these things before -the built in frequency counter comes in it's own little "box" and bolts in to a spot on the front panel right behind a bezel to show frequency. You have your typical lens and shade (tint). However, if they had to gain access to the rear of the front panel - they may not have put it all back together correctly.
The built in display module is their basic FC-347 counter in a shield box. But if they took away or made changes to any of it's display or had to install a mod behind the front panel by or at the switch close to that counter - that may be the noise you're hearing. It's from the "polling" of the display. You may need to return it to that tech and have them re-fit the panel and reseat-even reroute, the harness to the front panel to remove the noise or at least get the harness away from the display and it's noisy shield box.
So since you said you have a special type of tune up for your SSB mode, they may have inadvertently overpeaked the radios IF section - requiring a re-tune/De-tune to obtain more linearity. Or worse, re-assembled the radios
FRONT panel only now you have the noise from internal birdies the thing makes on it's own that if properly assembled, are lessened to the point you don't have to listen to that pulse of the polling drivers for that display.
Even the wiring to the main PCB from this section (frequency counter) is suspected - so you may be in over your head.
Don't violate a warranty to just take a look under the hood if it means to break seals - that may get costly for you later let alone get you into a blame game you don't always win.
Keep us posted on your progress.
