On Wed, 26 Jan 2005 10:22:55 -0500, "Bill Ogden"
wrote:
If I then switch the beam to 20 meters (while
continuing to listen on 20) the background noise and the signals go up but
the noise goes up more than the signals.

Hi Bill,

It seems highly unlikely there would be any alteration of S+N/N by a
passive device. More likely is trusting your senses to make this kind
of measurement (which is a poor standard).

Perhaps you can testify this was observed by S Meter readings. Well,
even then, this is another failure in trust unless you have calibrated
your S Meter against a known standard. Problem is that most S Meters
are not linear against their own scale.

This is all a function of the actual ratio being distorted as the
overall levels climb through the meter readings. Let's consider if
you started with S3-S5 (noise-signal+noise, a presumable 6dB
separation) and pushed that up through tuning to achieve S7-S8(a
presumable 3dB separation) then you need to confirm your meter. Is
the S3-S5 separation in fact twice the S7-S8 separation? Feel free to
substitute your own readings (if in fact you based your observations
on this method). The further apart the readings, the more likely you
are to suffer the distortion of meter scaling inaccuracy.

73's
Richard Clark, KB7QHC