General Discussions
This is the place to discuss general issues related to the U-boat war or the war at sea in WWII.
RE: Metox & Naxos
Posted by:
John R.
()
Date: August 29, 2001 03:20PM
<HTML>The spurious emissions coming from a receiver can indeed be picked up by another receiver. It was enough of a problem that the US Navy gave RCA a \"spare no expense\" contract to develop a receiver that would not radiate. The result was the RBA series of radios.
The problem is that radio receivers (with the exception of a crystal set) have oscillators in them that will radiate enough energy to be picked up at some distance. the worst offender was the Armstrong, or regenerative detector. If improperly adjusted, one of these could be heard for miles. The Superheterodyne detector (also invented by Armstrong) radiated to a lesser extent.
One of the interference problems that has plagued me as a Ham Radio operator is the constant \"FWIP....FWIP....FWIP...\" Noise I get on some 2 Metre frequencies. What these always turn out to be is a police scanner that has a channel 10.7 or 10.8 Mcs. above the ham channel I\'m monitoring. Another time, a fellow who lived 5 blocks away and who worked for a pipeline company drove his company truck home and left his 2-way on over night. this caused a strong interfering carrier from his truck.
The absolute WORST offender, though, is a Television set! There is an oscillator there that runs at 15.750 kcs., and it creates hamonic energy well into the SW spectrum. The 3.58 Mcs. colour burst oscillators are quite noisy, too. I sometimes can tell how many TV\'s are on in my neighbourhood by listening to them drop off one by one late at night. If U-Boats had had TV, the Allies would not have needed Huff-Duff...
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The problem is that radio receivers (with the exception of a crystal set) have oscillators in them that will radiate enough energy to be picked up at some distance. the worst offender was the Armstrong, or regenerative detector. If improperly adjusted, one of these could be heard for miles. The Superheterodyne detector (also invented by Armstrong) radiated to a lesser extent.
One of the interference problems that has plagued me as a Ham Radio operator is the constant \"FWIP....FWIP....FWIP...\" Noise I get on some 2 Metre frequencies. What these always turn out to be is a police scanner that has a channel 10.7 or 10.8 Mcs. above the ham channel I\'m monitoring. Another time, a fellow who lived 5 blocks away and who worked for a pipeline company drove his company truck home and left his 2-way on over night. this caused a strong interfering carrier from his truck.
The absolute WORST offender, though, is a Television set! There is an oscillator there that runs at 15.750 kcs., and it creates hamonic energy well into the SW spectrum. The 3.58 Mcs. colour burst oscillators are quite noisy, too. I sometimes can tell how many TV\'s are on in my neighbourhood by listening to them drop off one by one late at night. If U-Boats had had TV, the Allies would not have needed Huff-Duff...
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