Good MagLoop antenna performance and fun portable operations
I purchased the Alpha Loop and gave it a try before leaving for a two-month trip to Australia. I set it up in my living room, and made quite a few contacts on CW from Nevada to the South Pacific (e.g., S. Cook Is, Austral Is, Hawaii, Chile) and Mexico on 40m through 12m using my 5 watt FT-817 rig. The only improvement that I could suggest is a more precise vernier adjustment on the capacitor for tuning to resonance on a high-Q circuit. The tuning can be extremely touchy, even while using an AA-54 RigExpert analyzer to assist – but I expect this for a resonant-loop antenna.
I noted in my NV indoor operations that matching to a 50-ohm load resistance is best if the loop is shaped into an ellipse about 40″ wide by 30″ high, and making the inner (small) loop “loosely” coupled to the large loop (by placing the large loop at the top of the selfie stick) for 30m through 10m. On 40m and 80M, I obtained the best results by tightly coupling the inner and outer loops (i.e., by velcro-tying the coax from the outer loop(s) directly to the inner loop at the top).
All in all, much better performance than I expected, and this supplement is a report of my experiences in VK6-land – operating near the ocean rather than at 7000 ft elevation in the mountains. I was on the air for quite few hours from the Perth area of Western Australia (WA), mostly from low-elevation beach areas on the Indian Ocean. It took some effort, but I made contacts from WA to Mauritius (3B8), Sri Lanka (4S7), and Japan on 15m; Rotuma Island (3D2), Taiwan (BU2), and Okinawa (JS6) on 17m; and various eastern Australia, Timor Leste (4W), and Maldives (8Q7) on 20m. QSOs of distances between 2000 km and 8600 km were achieved with 5W output. (I did not take the extra loop for 40/80m with me, so I did not try these bands.)
The only comparison I can make for my prior Western Australia QRP operations 2014-2016 was with a 20m vertical ground plane elevated about 3 m above ground, which did have better performance than the Alpha Loop. Granted, band conditions were pretty poor when I was visiting Australia during March and April 2017 and using the loop.
Again, can recommend the Alpha Loop for good portable operations. Would give it a 4.5, if I could enter this rating.
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