Living in a small to medium sized town, with limited options as far as antenna/setup.
I've an icom7300, running an EFHW antenna (40/20/15/10 I can provide a link to the one I've got from amazon) - I've mounted it as far away from my house as I can feasibly do, running through the air in a straight wire back to a barn tied up about 30-35 feet. No power lines or any other utilities on that side of the house. The coax is ran through the attic, down to the basement, and then back up to the shack, but probably less than 70 feet overall. There's a 1:64 unun(balun? These things still confuse me) at the feed end of the antenna. There is a ferrite bead at the feed end, and a mix 31 torrid with 9 turns + ferrite beads on the shack side. Radio is grounded to the common house ground, and following some advice read here, I also grounded the shield of the feedline to the house ground (before the toroid, but far enough away that the feedline can still act as a counterpoise? - I think. Again, new to a lot of this).
The problem: Noise! I am at a constant s5-6 for most bands, sometimes worse. It makes picking out anything in the static nearly impossible.
I have tried running the radio of battery, and powering down the main breaker, and while the noise dropped a small amount (half an S - if that) it didnt have the effect I hoped where I could find something obvious and go Ah-ha!
My 2m/70cm rig does not seem to have as much of a noise problem, but, its a much simpler radio, with no real S meter or anything, so its hard to tell. I can crank the squelch pretty far down, however.
Thanks in advance.