14 Mar 2020

More on loops

At our old house, I did some tests with a loop antenna using central heating pipe.

More recently I have been using a Wonder Wand loop that was a gift many years ago. As described yesterday, this loop uses a different way to match the loop and much thinner wire for the loop. Thicker wire results in better efficiency and sharper tuning. As I recall, my loop of some years ago was surprisingly effective.

For 10m FT8 the loop could be brought to resonance with a small length of coax. This needs to be carefully cut to tune to frequency, but once cut, it should not need further adjustment. A short length of coax acts as a capacitor and should be able to cope with the high voltages at the top of a resonant loop.

See https://sites.google.com/site/g3xbmqrp3/antennas/magloop

3 comments:

K5DUZ said...

My understanding of the mag loop antenna is that maximum radiation is from the side opposite the capacitor. If I'm seeing things correctly, your loop is upside down.

Roger G3XBM said...

No. Maximum radiation is in the plane of the loop. The USA is in this direction!

K5DUZ said...

Check the G0CWT website. He has video that shows the point of maximum radiation.