KB2GOM
Active Member
I have a problem: when my radio room was in the front of the house (on the east side), it was easy to run a feedline to a large RF-hungry SWL dipole with various stubs and feeders.
Now, however, with my "shack" moved to the SW corner of the house, any attempt to mount an outdoor antenna of any significant length raises potential safety issues because of nearby electrical lines.
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Monitoring VHF/UHF is no big deal because of high-performance scanner antennas. HF, however, presents challenges. My main receiver is a Satellit 800, which has the guts of a Drake R8 but also has a large telescoping vertical antenna. It works okay, but I wanted more signal.
I've been looking at small loops and got some great recommendations on another thread, but then I had a thought: what if I turned the 8' x 12' room into a giant horizontal passive horizontal loop?
So I called a ham friend and ran the idea by him. Sure, he said, give it a try. He gave me 25 feet of 4-conductor phone wire. The better half helped me to strip it. I ran a single strand -- about 50 feet long -- around the perimeter and hooked the ends to the clip-in terminals on the back of the Satellit 800.
There's a switch on the back of the 800 that allows me to quickly compare the loop with the radio's built-in vertical antenna. And . . . it works! It pulls in more signal than the vertical, but there is not noticeably less noise on the higher bands -- 15 megs and above.
Tomorrow, I'll be checking the lower bands early, but so far, so good.
Now, however, with my "shack" moved to the SW corner of the house, any attempt to mount an outdoor antenna of any significant length raises potential safety issues because of nearby electrical lines.
.
Monitoring VHF/UHF is no big deal because of high-performance scanner antennas. HF, however, presents challenges. My main receiver is a Satellit 800, which has the guts of a Drake R8 but also has a large telescoping vertical antenna. It works okay, but I wanted more signal.
I've been looking at small loops and got some great recommendations on another thread, but then I had a thought: what if I turned the 8' x 12' room into a giant horizontal passive horizontal loop?
So I called a ham friend and ran the idea by him. Sure, he said, give it a try. He gave me 25 feet of 4-conductor phone wire. The better half helped me to strip it. I ran a single strand -- about 50 feet long -- around the perimeter and hooked the ends to the clip-in terminals on the back of the Satellit 800.
There's a switch on the back of the 800 that allows me to quickly compare the loop with the radio's built-in vertical antenna. And . . . it works! It pulls in more signal than the vertical, but there is not noticeably less noise on the higher bands -- 15 megs and above.
Tomorrow, I'll be checking the lower bands early, but so far, so good.