[TenTec] 80 meter loops

[ac5e at comcast.net]

Hi Paul: Personally, I feel anything that helps a Ten Tec owner belongs on the list. My loop, ex-loop rather, at first was fed with 450 ohm ladder line through a Johnson "Kilowatt Matchbox." Later I compacted the shack so I only have two antenna tuners, so I changed to the Ten Tec 238 through a 4:1 high power balun mounted on the tower to the ladder line. I tried Amidon's 9:1 and 12:1 baluns with noticibly poorer results. 

Ground, or sometimes the lack of it, does have a substantial impact. Mine on this hill is an inch or two of poor quality "soil" over many feet of pure clay. It takes a day or so to dry out, meaning I have to reset the tuners on 80 and 40 every time it rains, and then a day or two after. A local agronomist says it probably takes 100 years for water to percolate from the surface to the underlying water table - so for all intents and purposes it really is "impermiable clay." In any event, it does not make a very satisfactory reflective surface for RF. 

One of these years I hope to make a trip to Colorado, sit on a mountain, and see what difference a few thousand feet of rock underfoot makes in how antennas work. And maybe see if a creek I used to know still has a few nuggets left. Metal detectors are much more advanced than they used to be! 

73  Pete Allen  AC5E