Foundations Of Amateur Radio

Foundations of Amateur Radio One of the often repeated attributes of noise and antennas is that man-made noise is vertically polarised and that is why a vertical antenna sounds noisier than a horizontal dipole. It's an interesting thing to say, but it it true? Let's start with what constitutes man-made noise. Cars driving past, solar panel inverters, pool pumps, high-tension power lines, garage door openers, broadband internet modems, LED lights, lawn mowers, leaf blowers, plasma televisions and so on. The more you think about this, the more noise makers you discover. So, are these noise sources all aligned in the same way, making the same noise? Clearly not. There is no alignment standard for installing a lamp, how to align your lawn mower, which direction to drive, what angle to point your garage door opener, so the statement that man-made noise is vertical is clearly bogus. That doesn't mean that the rest of the statement is also wrong. A vertical antenna in an urban environment often sounds much nois