London Shortwave, a regular contributor to the SWLing Post, lives in London, England and copes with serious amounts of radio noise (QRM) at his home. Unlike many urban radio listeners, the QRM didn’t chase him away from the hobby, rather he looked at it as a challenge. Besides taking his radio kit outdoors to escape the noise, he also has a noise mitigation set-up at his home which has been refined over the years.
London Shortwave shared this video demonstration earlier this year on his YouTube channel. Here’s his description:
In this video I demonstrate an improvement to indoor radio reception quality, which is possible to achieve in an urban environment.
I compare using a Tecsun PL-390 portable receiver to a radio set-up that combines Lowe HF-150’s sync detector, the Wellbrook active loop antenna and real-time noise reduction software.
I recently told London Shortwave that he’s a QRM-fighting Samurai; I believe he certainly deserves the title!
Any other QRM Samurai’s out there?
Ah, yes. Any longer term listener to the AM bands eventually must address the issue of interference. I’ve spent a good $100 alone on Cat-7 SSTP cabling connecting all my gear with Ethernet ports. The effort pays dividends especially in noisier environments.
This is very good!! We need more people showing that it is possible to listen to shortwave in urban areas. Although I am not suffering too much from QRM, I am always interested to see what can be done to minimize it. I use my Tecsun PL660 to walk around the house and find noisy chargers, lights, computers etc.. If you suspect noise from inside your house, switch everything of from the mains and listen on a portable radio untill the noise dissapears.
Cheers;
Ronald (ZL1RDK)