Loops on The Ground

[Dovebar1]

Hi, There is discussion on the internet about different sizes and configurations of loops on the ground.

They consist of wire in a square or retangular shape connected to a transformer.
I live in a small apartment with a small area of land out my back door.

Maybe I could make a small square or retangular shape. I might be able to make one for 15 to 20 ft of total wire.

If I make this I will discuss about it here.
I have so many projects so it may or may not be furture looked into but it could be a great project for anyone in an apartment with a little ground outside.

Thank you, Jim.

 

[EAFrizzle]

I'm a huge fan of LoG antennas, and have three in the backyard right now. They're a great tool for any shortwave listener, and can be made to fit any size space. Small ones work well for travel; I've taped one to hotel room windows many nights when I did a lot of work travel.

Depending on the radio's input jack, a BalUn may not be necessary. My Eton E³ has a ⅛" mono jack, and it works fine with a wire teminal adapter or direct to a male connector. Old receivers that have wire terminals for 300z twin-lead can be hooked up straight to the wire as well.

For anything with SMA connectors, I use the Nooelec 9:1 BalUn to go to co-ax. It's easy to add filters, amps, or whatever you need. Right now, I've got a 100' one going to the kitchen and 400 and 600 footers to the radio room. They're my favorite for long sessions of broadcast listening because of the noise rejection.

While they mostly catch high-angle signals, which can be weak depending on the time of day and band, the signal to noise ratio makes them effective, even for truly weak signals. And probably the quickest, cheapest, amd easiest solution to improving performance over an internal antenna.

The biggest problem I've had with them is becoming unusable when  Kp gets above 7, which isn't very often. Sometimes I can only catch something on a vertical, but the loops work well for over 90% of my HF monitoring.


Thanks for starting a thread on these. Try one sooner, rather than later; you'll enjoy it.

 

[ka3jjz]

This has been written about in the past. You can find some links in our loops wiki viz.

Loops - The RadioReference Wiki

wiki.radioreference.com

Mike

 

[ka3jjz]

There is even a small, maybe not very active, FB group on the subject

Facebook

www.facebook.com

Mike