Topband: loops and half square antennas

[Tom W8JI]

> Good afternoon to all,
> First I have never understood this fascination with loop antennas... full 
> wave or not. Unless they are put up vertically and even then they have to 
> be feed at the correct spot (thanks for the education all those years ago 
> Frank W3LPL) they just don't work DX very well.. in fact most loops I have 
> ever used are cloud burners... again they have to be up pretty high and 
> fed at the proper spot.
>

The only real advantage of large loops is the dip in impedance at all 
overtone frequencies. They go through an SWR dip at every harmonic of the 
base full-wave frequency.

That can be a nice advantage for a two to four band antenna, if the SWR dips 
all happen to fall on useful frequencies.

You can also melt ice off them, if the feedline conductor is large enough 
and you have a big high current supply.

Myself, if I could only have one antenna, I'd probably have an open wire fed 
80M dipole that I could load as a T on 160, and as a dipole on higher bands.