Since high voltage power lines went up near my home QTH in Brisbane a while ago, I’d been searching for something to help lessen the noise emanating through the speaker of my back up radio.

Having owned numerous noise limiting gadgets in the past (bhi headphones, DSP speakers etc.) but sold them in order to pay for ‘newer’ gadgets, I wanted something fresh and untried; something well priced yet respected in the Citizens Band or Ham worlds.

After a few Google searches, I stumbled across mention of a handy little product named a ‘Noise Chopper’ and, after having a long chuckle about the name, decided to order one across from Copper Electronics in the States at just under $50 AUS and give it a whirl.

After about 10 days delay, a V10-06088 Barjan NC100 Noise Chopper arrived on my doorstep, well packaged by International standards and ready to greet the outstretched hands of my back up or hobby rig, a Uniden Washington base CB radio in mint condition.

Immediately, I went about familiarizing myself with the manual and after a few minutes installed the lustrous black unit in-line between the Washington and my 6 element duel driven TE-6 yagi.

Also known as the ‘Noise Clipper’, the product has 3 levels of setting… 

The first is OFF for normal operations, the second is ‘MIN’ which eliminated minor interference from my flat screen computer and the third ‘MAX’ took the edge off interference from the high voltage powerlines I mentioned earlier. 

This was consistent with what the product advertising claimed to do which was to reduce noise received at the input of the radio and remove source noises which are radiated through the antenna.

In conclusion, I’ve been using the product for just over two weeks and can happily say that the V10-06088 Barjan NC100 ‘Noise Chopper’ allows me to get more signal without noise. 

Although it didn’t eliminate all interference from the power lines as I suspected it wouldn’t, nor did it perform as well as any of the bhi noise cancelling products available to me in the shack, it did reduce the noise from an S-7 to an S-4 and that could mean a world of difference when it comes to dusting off the cobwebs and working on the citizens band frequencies when the band hits up later in the year. 

I can also see no reason why it wouldn’t be effective used with an older ham transceiver with missing the modern DSP functions.

PRODUCT FEATURES

• MIN / MAX / OFF Switch
• Connects In-Line

SPECIFICATIONS

• Frequency Range: 1.5-30 MHz
• Connectors: SO-239 UHF Female
• Maximum Power Input: 50 Watts
• 0-30 dB Attenuation
• Impedance: 50 ohms

73 de Daren, 43DA001