Rob, my experience is that 2-Lambda or more begins to be a good dx antenna,
even at 20 ft. However raising it to 30 or 40 ft. would probably improve
it.
I have never taken the time to experiment raising and lowering it. I just
always put it up as high as I can at each location and work the world.
I know that is an ambiguous statement, but to qualify it better, it seems to
be a superior all-band performer to a dipole fed with openwire, especially
when you use it on 20m and above and point it in the right direction (80m
(320 ft.) loop on 20m has strong, flat lobes off of each corner).
Now to put that last statement into perspective, at a field day site we had
a 2-el. quad, but up only about 25 ft. I had my loop up 30 ft. On 20m
towards Japan (from Europe) the loop was just as strong. At the same time,
another corner pointing to stateside was just as strong as the quad when
working stateside. This is in general. The owner of the quad couldn't
believe it, checked the thing and f/b was working just fine. Of course as
propagation varied, each antenna sometimes appeared better, but in general,
the opinion of the rest of the club was, "why bother to put up a beam or a
quad if we can't get it up higher?"
More History: I moved around in Germany quite a lot over the past 30 years.
Each time I came to a new ham club (5 different clubs), I introduced the
loop as an all-band field day antenna. In all cases, no exceptions, the
clubs switched to using the loop for field day. Unfortunately the DARC (our
ARRL) changed the rules and now only allow two elevated masts, so the loop
has disappeared from the field day scene.
Someone stated it earlier. If I could only put up one single antenna and
wish to work all bands, this is the clear winner. And this is a no-brainer!
73
Rick
DJ0IP
-----Original Message-----
From: tentec-bounces@contesting.com [mailto:tentec-bounces@contesting.com]
On Behalf Of Rob Atkinson, K5UJ
I have a question about the cloud burner loops. If you have a low loop
that's only 20' off the ground but make it 2 or 3 lambda on 80 m. it seems
to me it will still be a cloud burner on that band. Is this right or will
the length give you some lower angles?
thanks,
rob / k5uj
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