[Elecraft] OT: Long loop antennas

[rckchp at comcast.net]

Hi Dave (& group),

There is a good article, "The Loop Skywire" about horizontal loops on the
ARRL web site. Here is a link :
http://www.arrl.org/members-only/tis/info/pdf/8511020.pdf   ,  but you need
to be an ARRL member to access it. If you're not a member I can snail mail
you a copy. Let me know.

I had one up for over a year and had great results with it. My 1st contact
(20m) was  to Tierra del Fuego at the south tip of South America....I was
running my K2 at 5 watts ssb and got a 5x7 signal report, next contact a few
minutes later was to Chile, got a 5x9 on that one.

My loop was thrown up "quick and dirty", not measured...I just made it as
large as my existing tree supports would allow. It was rectangular, not
square (or circular) and I guesstimated it was 440' circumference.....I
eventually took it down last summer due to approach of hurricane (I forget
the name) and then measured the wire and found it was actually 368'
circumference. It was up 35 ft.on one   corner 25 ft. at the next nearest
corner, then sloped downwards to approx 20 ft. at the far ends.

I fed mine , as the article suggested, direct with coax (RG8X), no balun ,
and the K2 autotuner gave an acceptable match on all bands except 160m where
it was 3.5 to 1 and even at that I made several contacts on 160. Also, it
was much quieter recieving than any of my other wire antennas (dipoles).

Try it, (they are also cheap to make) .....you'll like it.

72 & Regards,


Rich  K2CPE
K2 #1102





>Subject:[Elecraft] OT: Long loop antennas


>  I have a fair amount of room and
> am contemplating replacing my 3 element beam and vertical with a long loop
> antenna (to simplify).
> Any sage comments from the group?  Do I need a tuner?  Should the tuner be
> at the antenna or the rig?