Topband: E51D Oct 1

[GEORGE WALLNER]

Thank you Wes, but it wasn't my "ears" (which are not what they are used to 
be) but a new RX antenna and a very low noise pre-amplifier, that we 
installed yesterday morning. Your signal was an easy copy with this new 
antenna. There was no trace of it on the TX antenna! (You also set your 
frequency well: a couple of hundred Hertz away from the other callers but 
still withing the RX passband.)
There is a timely thread going on about a "Low Frequency RX Antenna". The 
antenna we installed yesterday is a single support variant of this VE3DO 
loop, which is essentially a delta loop. This type of antenna is easy to 
install and gives you an RDF that is just a few of dB-s shy of a small 
Beverage, but at a much lower gain. The key is a low noise amplifier located 
at the antenna. This is a must in almost all situations. The amp is remote 
not to overcome the coax losses (which it does), but to ensure that 
amplification takes place before noise is introduced into the RX system. We 
have a single RIB on a small cay with two Honda 22i generators. Like most 
temporary installations, grounding is less then perfect and some noise 
couples into the RX circuit. A low noise pre-amp at the antenna, turns a -30 
dBi RX antenna into a -10 dBi RX antenna with an RDF of 7 dB. That is 
sufficient to

overpower the noise that inevitably gets into the receiver.
I will be on TB again tonight.
73,
George,
E51D
PS: You can easily expand this antenna to cover four directions by adding a 
second loop on the same support at 90 degrees, and use switchable 
transformers to change directions.




On Wed, 2 Oct 2024 11:12:43 -0400  wrote:
>As a tribute to George's incredible ears on E5-N, this morning, at 1107 UTC,
>just before local SR, I worked E51D QRP, using a "nothing special" Inv-L.
>This is from Northwest Rockingham County, VA, FM08. The signal was solid
>copy, averaging around S7. Signal strength was not quite as loud as 2 days
>prior, when peaks reached nearly S9.
>Oddly, yesterday, morning, on FT8, I couldn't work E51D with a kW!
>Thanks, George.
>Jim - WS6X _________________
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