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Are mag loops for real or hype?

Dec 17th 2016, 20:23

0001490519H80

Joined: Apr 4th 1998, 00:00
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I shelled out some serious money for a mag loop antenna. I saw a website from a british ham saying that he had worked antartica on 2 watts CW from inside his house. I'm not getting anything like that. What is other peoples' experience?

So far I got one response from a local ham that I was putting out a very weak signal on 40 meters with my YouKits w/ a nominal 5 watts.
Dec 18th 2016, 03:53

W1VT

Super Moderator

Joined: Apr 4th 1998, 00:00
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I've worked a bunch of portable stations at National Parks who use magnetic loop antennas. These days, 40M is more of a daytime band if you are running QRP, though you might get lucky and work some DX just after sunrise or around sunset when the band is really long.

http://www.arrl.org/propagation
Here are some propagation charts for choosing when to operate on the different bands.

Zack Lau W1VT
ARRL Senior Lab Engineer
Dec 18th 2016, 23:57

0001490519H80

Joined: Apr 4th 1998, 00:00
Total Topics: 0
Total Posts: 0
Thanks. i can tune the mag loop antenna to get max sound and I hear stations well. I hooked up an antenna analyzer and the best SWR I could get was 4 something. Any ideas on what ( if anything) is wrong? I am using a YouKits H1-B1 into a chameleon mag loop with the aluminum tube option.
Dec 19th 2016, 18:43

W1VT

Super Moderator

Joined: Apr 4th 1998, 00:00
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http://www.worldwidedx.com/threads/review-of-the-chameleon-cha-f-loop-portable-antenna.192105/
As this review points out, indoor operation can be expected to compromise the SWR. You may try different locations to see if you can find a spot where the interaction with nearby objects in minimized.

Zack W1VT
ARRL Senior Lab Engineer
Dec 20th 2016, 01:30

0001490519H80

Joined: Apr 4th 1998, 00:00
Total Topics: 0
Total Posts: 0
Thank you Zack. That review was very helpful. The tuning procedure for the antenna says to adjust the SWR after you tune the anrenna for max noise. The H1-B1 model I have lacks an SWR meter. I bought a little SWR meter from YouKits today ( YouKits makes the H1-B1) I hope that will help. Finally I figured out ( the documentation wasn't clear ) that you can't set it up on 80 meters with the aluminum radiator and the coax. I will see how that works.
73's

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