Ron:
Your points are well taken.
Clearly a calibrated noise generator is overkill.
The problem with a 160/80m antenna is that one is not always conveniently
accessible.
If a person did not wish to fork over the $40 or so for the Elecraft noise
generator, it occurs to me that there is one other possibility. Lots of
hams (including me) have a noise bridge (such as the MFJ-202), and it might
be a good noise source for alignment. The load port could be terminated in
either a short, an open, a 50 ohm fixed load, or practically anything else.
All that would be necessary is being sure that the tunable impedances in
the bridge are set such that they are well away from the impedance of the load.
Does this approach present a pitfall that has not yet occurred to me?
73,
Steve
AA4AK
Ordinary background QRN on 80 or 160 meters works FB too. Just avoid any
frequency where a signal falls within the bandpass. If the background QRN is
not loud enough for someone on 80 or 160 (lucky, lucky you having THAT QTH!)
just turn on the Preamp.
I use a noise source only when I'm in the shop away from an antenna. There's
absolutely NOTHING about a noise generator in this application that makes
the alignment any more "perfect". The noise source is just a convenience. At
times when an antenna is not available it's a convenience well worth having,
but that's all it is.
Ron AC7AC
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