ALA1530LNP

[hfxChris]

I know the Wellbrook ALA1530S+ seems to be a bit of a crowd favourite, it's always brought up when anyone asks about loops.

The ALA1530LNP has been on their website for a while now, but apparently it now says it's been upgraded as of August 2016 to "increase gain by approx. 6dB above 10MHz."

Anyone have any experience with this upgraded version? Any comparisons to the S+?

I've got an ALA100M which is an excellent antenna on the LF/MF, but I would say decent at HF, marginally better than the old wire-in-the-attic that it replaced, and at daytime reception above ~10-15MHz it tends to fall apart. I guess the main reason I got the ALA100M over the 1530S+ at the time was well cost, but also I thought it would be interesting to play around with different loop sizes. I'm thinking it would be nice now to have something that performs better at the higher frequencies.

Living in a suburban environment I don't have a huge amount of real estate for anything too large, so I quite like the idea of loops.

Any advice on the ALA1530LNP, or anything else to consider, would be appreciated. Thanks guys!

 

[Robertkoa]

Interesting- I am watching this thread.
As a beginner with a nice Eton E1 - I wonder how much activity is above 12 khz even with a great Antenna ? ( which I do not have ).

So those of you with great antennas- what are you hearing in 12 Khz to 30 khz Ranges these days in 2017 ?

 

[ka3jjz]

Do you mean 12-30 Mhz? I don't even think the E1 goes down THAT low (heh)...Mike

 

[Robertkoa]

Do you mean 12-30 Mhz? I don't even think the E1 goes down THAT low (heh)...Mike

Yes .ha ha ..oops sorry about that but look how accurate this decimal point is }.

 

[ka3jjz]

Robert. you're not being very specific - there are a lot of services in that range, including broadcast, ham, CB, utilities...that's really going to make the answer difficult.

Keep in mind, too, that we have 2 things working against us..we're now in the winter season, when we don't get quite the solar radiation we do in the summer (interestingly, we are actually closer to the sun - by about 1 million miles or so - during the winter than we are in the summer, it's more our tilt which gives us our seasons). Therefore the higher freqs don't work quite as well. In addition, solar conditions have been lousy of late - and it seems that, apart from any quick storms or coronal holes, that things are going to stay pretty crummy for the forseeable future.

This doesn't mean there isn't DX to be had - any ham that frequents the 20, 17,12 or 10 meters will tell you that - that's simply not true. It is a bit harder, though...Mike

 

[mbott]

There have been times that I have thought about trying out one of the Wellbrook antennas. I already use and like the Pixel RF Pro-1B, but I wonder if "the grass is greener" with the Wellbrook. Maybe this year.

--
Mike