4 Jan 2020

Finbar EI0CF's experimental 160m magnetic loop antenna

Finbar EI0CF has been experimenting with a 160m magnetic loop antenna in his garage. He has been using powers of between 700mW and 10W and has been amazed at the results. He has had WSPR reports from several stations in North America as well as plenty of others in other directions.

For fixed frequency operation (these loops are very sharply tuned if working efficiently) these antennas can be remarkably effective.  With high powers, the RF voltages at the high impedance points can be very high (less of an issue with QRP) which is one reason people use capacitors rated for very high voltages in some cases.

It is some years since I used a loop on 10m WSPR, but recall being amazed how well these small antennas worked. The photo shows Finbar's experimental 160m loop.

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