Topband: K9AY Loops

[KG6DV at cs.com]

Ted
In band SO2R is always rough. I have tried to listen on a second receiver and 
even with bandpass filters and stubs I haven't had much success. I afraid I 
have nothing to offer here, however, the K9AY loop performance on bands other 
than 160 is something That I have had some success with.  At present I have a 
broadband matching transformer on my 9AY loop, it works very well on 160and 80. 
My first attempt at a K9AY loop was different. I put the loop up and instead 
of using the matching transformer I used an SGC auto antenna tuner for 
matching. This actually worked very well, the performance on 160 was all I had hoped 
for. The performance on 10-20 meters was pretty darn good, that was somewhat 
of a surprise. The performance did drop a bit by the time I got to 30 and 40 
meters but wasn't all that bad. How well did it work?  My first attempt to use 
it was on 17 meters, a simple 100 watt 3X3 Cq was answered by three stations, 
4X4, HB9, and a UA3. This was under propagation conditions that could only be 
described as great but the fact is the loop used as both a receiving antenna at 
low frequencies and as a transmitting antenna at higher frequencies was 
pretty good, even under less than ideal conditions. The loop in this configuration 
was directional on 160/80.  JA stations off the side of the main lobes were 
weaker than on my loaded vertical, New England stations would at times pump my 
receiver agc on 160.  I have never had another 160 antenna that received this 
well.  Just my experience with using the 9AY style loop, for what it may be 
worth.

Ron KH6DV
Kaneohe Hawaii