[Elecraft] Any benefits to a Long "Long Wire"

[Charlie Hicks]

About a month ago I put up a 1,000' horizontal loop at about 25' +/- in my
pasture.  I feed it with about 125' of 450 balanced line and tune it with a
Ten Tec 238 tuner.  I was going to put up just a single wavelength 160 M
loop (just under 500') but the 1,000' fit better in the pasture.

It will tune on all bands near 1:1 (except on 160 which is about 1.4:1) and
has lots of gain.  It is pretty much  omni directional - although I haven't
done any field measurements.

It's the first horizontal loop antenna I have put up and I love it.  To be
able to tune the entire HF band on a single antenna with quite a bit of gain
is real nice.  I've had lots of various multiband dipoles, etc. but this
beats them all.

Looking back over the years I wish I would have tried the horiz. loops
before - even if only a single wavelength on 40.  They are easy to put up
and really don't have to cost much.  You can string them through trees, off
the sides of houses, etc.  The higher the better.  I suspect I warm the
clouds quite a bit since mine is only at 25' or so - but it sure works well.
In the future I'd like to see about putting up some telephone poles.  Placed
right I would also be able to build a rhombic on the inside of the loop - or
perhaps a multi-directional, switchable V.  It's amazing what you can do
with a length of wire.  And it doesn't have to be real expensive.

73,  Charlie
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Charlie Hicks  Amateur Radio: KOCKH
HICKS Systems & Associates, Inc.