Loops Very possibly a Chinese ripoff

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vagrant

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I am curious about the specs of that amplifier. That bit of wire is also interesting, but one could always replace it with about 10' of 1/2" copper pipe and some taps on each end. It would also be easy to slip in an RTL-SDR MW filter inline as needed on the coaxial cable.
 

mbott

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I've already decided that IF I decide I need another loop, a W6LVP will be what I get.

--
Mike
 

prcguy

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A receive loop of this type is between about 150 to 200 ohms across a very wide frequency range, so there is no need for a fat conductor. Some types of transmitting loops need to reduce every fraction of an ohm for best efficiency, but those are a different design.


I am curious about the specs of that amplifier. That bit of wire is also interesting, but one could always replace it with about 10' of 1/2" copper pipe and some taps on each end. It would also be easy to slip in an RTL-SDR MW filter inline as needed on the coaxial cable.
 

ka3jjz

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You may have heard about this antenna on eBay - these aren't exactly ringing endorsements. Personally I'd stick with the tried and true. More expensive, yes, but far and away better performers than this...



Mike
 

KMG54

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For 50 bucks I am going to try one and report. This will be for recieve only, but hey someone has to try.
 

ka3jjz

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Here are a few more links on this antenna - it seems to be attracting some attention, even tho it's cheap and comes from China...




Mike
 

ka3jjz

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Martin on the loopantennas mailing list on groups.io has done some fairly extensive evaluations on the MLA30's amp, and it isn't good news. It's too long and involved to get into the specifics here, but if you are interested in this antenna, be sure to join that group (it's free), as well as getting the reviews from our Loops wiki...Mike
 

KMG54

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Well I must say I am pretty impressed. Got it Friday, but had a house full of company until today. I cobbled it together with my own homade 5 foot loop and just hung it under the porch. House is blocking a bunch, but already much better results than my longwire.. AM broadcast waterfall is solid spikes, 1.906, LSB listening to hams. Shortwave broadcasting from 5 to 11 megs is stronger, above that is a little week. But is is dark time here now. Overall, pretty impressed for the small investment. Can't wait to move it from under the porch and give it some room to show off.
 

deadite66

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i've ordered one, look forward to trying it. read that if i use the bias tee in my sdrplay instead of the supplied one much of the noise will disappear.
at least it should be better than the few meters of speaker wire i put up in the attic.
 

dave524

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i've ordered one, look forward to trying it. read that if i use the bias tee in my sdrplay instead of the supplied one much of the noise will disappear.
at least it should be better than the few meters of speaker wire i put up in the attic.

Just got mine yesterday, works fine off the Bias T of my SDRPlay RSP2Pro and blows away a similar 20' wire that I had strung up temporarily. Just hanging beside me indoors still but good clean copies last evening on both the 160 and 80 metre Ham bands
 

ka3jjz

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I wonder how the loop connections to the amp box is going to fare in heavy winter weather. It looks a bit flimsy although that could just be the pix that I have seen. Indoors it isn't going to be an issue, but outdoors it might be....Mike
 

deadite66

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did the MLA-30 conversion and removed the awful RG174 and soldered in a BNC connector, tried it with an rtlsdr v3 and was picking up shannon volmet stronger than my RSP2.
next to buy some plastic pipe and stick it in the attic on my RSP2.
 

vagrant

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The ”conversion” is removing the long RG174 coax and installing a bulkhead BNC connector on the case. Thus, some LMR-240UF or other low loss coax instead would improve things. I would venture that using the built in bias tee on the SDRPlay may provide improved results, or at least worth testing.
 
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