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MFJ-1026 Noise Canceller Tests At VA7MM
22 May 2017 | by  |
| courtesy: www.mfjenterprises.com/ |
Mark, VA7MM, has been testing out his newly-acquired MFJ-1026 Noise Canceller and has provided several videos of the noise canceller in action.
Like so many other hams, Mark's suburban location has seen a gradually rising noise floor and the noise heard in this video is from an off-site location within his local neighbourhood, located about 400m away.
The noise canceller requires a separate 'noise antenna' in order to cancel any noise on the main receiving antenna and for all of the tests shown below, Mark's noise antenna was a Cushcraft R-7 vertical while using an Icom IC-7600 transceiver for listening.
Test 1 shows the noise canceller being used while listening to a broadcast station on 6.0 MHz:
Test 2 shows the canceller's effect on raw noise while viewing in Spectran:
Test 3 shows the canceller's effect on a 40m CW signal:
Test 4 shows the effect of just the IC-7600's noise blanker on the offending noise:
Mark's comments:
Living in the noise cloud one must resort to special measures to use affected portions of spectrum. I recently purchased an MFJ-1026 noise canceller and have been testing the unit and have attached videos demonstrating the unit’s performance. You will see examples of raw noise, SW broadcast and 40 m CW signals with the unit being switched in and out. Also for comparison is the noise blanker in the IC-7600 failing to eliminate the same noise.
Conclusions:
- the unit is able to eliminate noise in most instances when adjusted properly
- the noise sense antenna is critical and several different switchable noise sense antennas may be required for good performance
- setting up on AM mode with Spectran helps with fine adjustment
- it outperforms the radio’s noise blanker in all cases tested
With proper tuning and set up, it looks like the MFJ-1026 can make a worthwhile improvement in unwanted noise reduction. Mark will also be testing and comparing a Timewave ANC-4 Noise Canceller with the MFJ and any videos received will be published here.
4 Responses to “MFJ-1026 Noise Canceller Tests At VA7MM”
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Thank you Mark and Steve. Very interesting. I too recently (early this year), in desperation, installed an MFJ-1026, using the 5 metre high vertical aluminium support pole on my VHF/UHF discone antenna as a vertical reference antenna. Eureka – once I learned to drive the 1026 it is able to clear most of my background neighbourhood noise problems. Far better than I expected. For me, living in rf-noisy suburbia, works brilliantly on HF. Few extra knobs to twist and buttons to push, but what the heck – we’re hams.
I also purchased the MFJ-1026 due to a large amount of power line noise in my suburban neighborhood. The “internal” antenna is nearly useless. Don’t even try it. As Mark pointed out it is essential to use another nearly equal antenna for best results. I found making the interface cable for my Yaesu-450D to be hard. It is essential to avoid putting the transmitter power through the 1026. I finally bought the external PA interface cable and got the transmit on wire out to the MFJ-1026.
Results: What had been a nearly unusable S-9 noise floor could be, by careful adjustment brought down to a more acceptable S-4. I subsequently completely rewired my fixed station and made sure everything was grounded well. After that fix the MFJ-1026 got me to below S-3 noise floor.
My radio noise blanker also had no discernable effect on the broadband noise.
I recently bought an Icom 7100 and as you know everything is digitised from the
36 kHz IF, The Noise Blanker on that rig works very well as it does it as follows.
The bandwidths and modes are handled in software therefore by using another
software algorythm it generates a signature of the noise itself then subtracts
that digitally from the signal plus noise. It is very effective at removing the noise.
Mark : Am considering getting the MFJ , or the TimeWave noise cancelers , as I’m in
a high noise level area here in North Van.. On the MFJ website , there is some concern that the T/R switch may not switch quickly enough which could result in damage to the unit . I could understand that for fast CW , that could be a problem, but I would be running only 100w , voice and low pwr digital . Have you heard from anyone else concerned that the T/R switch is not robust or fast enough to prevent damage ? Give it some thought . Tks.
(This next section is for you only. Do not include with above message .)
Hope you’re steering clear of “The Bug”. Our Club (NS-ARC) has postponed the basic licencing course ’til the Fall . Also, I’m sure that you’ve heard that the Sun Run
is off , as well as the Spring addition of the Maple Ridge Hamfest . 73 ! — Bob .