Washi tape to the rescue again!
Tuesday morning, with Project TouCans working better that it had in days, I noticed that the ends of our stranded wire antenna had begun to fray out. I grabbed a roll of washi tape from my pocket, (who doesn't take washi tape on a radio outing?), and a few minutes later, voila
What do you suppose is the explanation of noise reduction when tidying up the frayed ends with tape? de W6CSN
ReplyDeleteThe strands of wire were picking up static electricity from the dry, dusty air. The smaller and more exposed the point on the wire, the higher the electric field, and the more noise in the receiver. I remembered this from a fairly spiffy source about pyroelectric crystals being used with a tiny tungsten point to make neutrons! Check out
ReplyDeletehttps://pubs.aip.org/aip/jap/article/135/20/200701/3294619/Pyroelectric-crystals-for-generation-of-neutrons-A
It's not my favorite article on this, but it's open-access.