On 3/26/2025 1:36 PM, Larry, K4KGG via groups.io wrote:
I've followed this thread with some interest.
So have I, a bit. And a VERY important issue has been missing from the discussion -- RF NOISE! Monitors and their power supplies are a well-known source of noise on our ham bands, and the last thing we need is more of that. This is an issue you're not going to be able to figure out in the showroom or on the internet -- you won't know until you fire it up and poke around it with a battery operated receiver that tunes to HF.
My favorite probe has long been a vintage Kenwood TH-F6A talkie, which has wideband RX from below the AM broadcast band to about 550 MHz, and detectors for AM, FM, and SSB.
If you don't have something like that, an inexpensive Tecsun AM/FM/shortwave receiver will do the job. They use DSP chips designed for consumer radios and their RF performance is amazingly good. My favorite hotel radio, the PL380, sells for about $55. coupled to a roof-top dipole, it is able to receive a weak FM station sandwiched between two much louder ones on the frequencies right next theirs on both sides. That's something that my vintage Technics receiver with a six-gang variable capacitor couldn't do. It sold for $500 25 years ago, and was the best you could buy.
Another issue has arisen with some models of touchscreen monitors. A member of a local club gave me a vintage Samsung with that feature that did flips when he transmitted AND produced lots of noise. I quickly re-gifted it, after figuring out that it couldn't be tamed with ferrites.
My recommendation is to try to choose from something you can buy from a vendor like Costco, who offers no questions asked returns (limited to 90 days for certain products like computers and major appliances). That way, if you get it home and it's a dog you can return it.
If you buy something that's noisy and you can't return it, check out my tutorial on finding and killing noise sources. Two versions, both pdfs. Text is
Slides for talks I've done at Pacificon, Visilia, and to several ham clubs is
73, Jim K9YC
