I believe my unshielded 300mm, 7.5mm are slightly more immune to the H field noise in my environment, while at the same time increasing the signal somewhat. I don't have equipment to measure. That's in comparison to the originals I ordered with the kit... Mine are oriented N/S E/W for several reasons, mostly because that's how I want them
I think my most distant strike detected was close to 4800km, back when Don F and I were the only two reds, and in 'serious bloody competition'
over who was #1.... and the nearest just about 7Km, if I remember correctly.
(But this isn't really about distance... we should all remember this is about network efficiency)
When I attempted shielding, my initial impression was that the 'noise basement' had dropped about 10 db. That was purely coincidental and situational, and proved not to be the case. Eventually I became convinced that the overall performance had degraded because of it, and removed the shielding.
My gains on H field are typically 10x10 both channels, depending on the axle factory's welders and assembly lines south of me. Then A needs to about 8x8 or 8x5, depending. My thresholds typically are 100-120 (without channel mapping) in either or both channels. With Channel mapping, because of the E field addition, I've been running them at 100-110. If old axle factory runs a second line, especially at night, I bring 'em to 120.
Nothing bothers my E fields... once in awhile a lawn mower, or some other thing that arcs nearby, might cause a burst of interference... only other way to get to interference mode is with simply too many signals. With my 370mm (15"±) probe, I'll have to knock gain all 3 channels down to 2x1 or even 1x1 and still detect strikes 200-300 mi away with E field alone, and H field at 1x1. I've run E field at 8x8 all channels, but typically will run at about 5x5, which is still too high for <300 miles and thresholds are always at 90.
