Will I ever be able to work the top band (160m)?

You may remember that some time back I tried to make a loaded coil dipole antenna for 160m, but it did not resonate on 160m even with the maximum length I could mount at my tiny compound. I have not abandoned my dream of working on 160m, the only HF band I have not been able to work on. I keep on checking the top band with my existing antennas. This is what I found when I checked at around 8.30 pm local time.

Never seen anything like this on any other HF bands. 9+30 dB of white noise! I am used to 9+ noise on most of the HF bands, which does limit my operations. But this is too much indeed and make my prospects of ever working on 160m quite dull. What I have found is that noise is generally more with resonant antennas than antennas meant for other bands. If that is so on 160m, I should expect even higher noise levels if at all I am successful in making a resonant antenna for 160m.