"Skyloop" Antenna

Hi All,

Hope you're keeping well and enjoying your radio.  


Is anyone here running or has run a full wave horizontal loop for HF?

I can read a ton about theory etc. but wanted to know if anyone can put some personal experience to it all.


My current zig-zag doublet (lawnmower lead!) in the loft has been about the best I've managed to achieve so far in a half decent performance level but still feel it might be lacking somewhat. (Most antennas can be a 'compromise' no matter how you look at it! )

I've had a measure up of my property and should be able to squeeze in a 40m loop at least 7m high and would want to ladder-line feed it for multi-band capability. (My homebrew ATU should handle it all.) This should give me decent performance NVIS wise for 40m and hopefully fire more to the horizon as I go up the bands.

I'll probably go down that route anyway as the neighbours have become accustomed to my various bits of wire slung up over the last few months with some not even noticing (thank God) but I've yet to find a solution that improves on what I already have. EFHW (end fed half wave) solutions attracted nothing but noise and may be due to the 44kV telegraph pole style farmer power lines that run parallel to my property less than 40 feet away(!) My loft doublet runs in the opposite direction and being a balanced antenna attracts far less noise so hopefully a loop will give me a similar result.....but better.


Any input anyone can give would be most appreciated but personal experience is what I'm really after.

All the best,
Victor

I ran an 80m loop, but it wasn't very high, so bit of a cloud warmer, and I got better performance from my current EFHW setup whcih I could get higher as I needed less supports.

I used an AH-4 tuner to the ends of the loop via a short length of ladder line for convenience (One to the "hot" terminal and one to the ground terminal on the tuner), with no balun, and the usual coax from the tuner back to the shack.  The AH-4 will tune a fence post, so no issues there.

Hi Jeff,

Cheers for the input, much appreciated.

I know the Icom AH-4 is great bit of kit able to match very low as well as high impedances and thankfully I can do similar although manually with my homebrew ATU. Hopefully a short piece of ladderline to my upstairs shack should do the job for feeding it.

I know height is might with a lot of these things but hoping such a solution at the same height as the current doublet will improve on things.

Maybe I'll just go ahead with it and hope for the best but wanted personal experiences in case I land up wasting my time and efforts.


Thanks again.

Just go for it Victor, you know different locations don't act the same - make your antenna erector a set of stilts and away you go.

Hi Richard,

Yep, location does help and I'm a bit amiss in that department......



100m high valley walls surrounding Bedford!


The antenna erector (my wife) has already had enough of the spiders in the loft after a dozen or so visits so I don't think I'll be getting her on stilts anytime soon!


I'll give it a bash (already ordered some more wire) and see how I fare.

With regards to the topography, I have pretty similar. I believe the English translation of where we live is "The Valley of the Crow". Perhaps I should have stayed in Northampton. Good luck with the project.

I had one for 40m band up about 20ft. With ATU can match on any higher band. I liked the quiet receive. Noticeable less noise than a dipole. What you gain in flexibility in a multi-band antenna you loose in transmit performance, which is typically a little less than a dipole. But it is very broad-banded. You won't have to do much tuning inside of any HF band. It should be a good project for you!

Hi Mike,

Thank you for your knowledge and experience with your own 40m loop it is most appreciated.  

I did put up a temporary fixture with thin wire (easier to get over the roof!) before committing to a full on build and was fairly impressed with it. As you say it matches wonderfully on all the HF bands especially as I used ladder-line to feed it but also as you mention it does seem to be a bit 'down' on my doublet. It seems like my S/N ratio is about the same so any apparent 'quietness' could be down to that. (?)

Like any good 'Amateur' I'll keep playing around on that quest for the holy grail antenna but it's all been good fun up to now. (My 44 foot doublet was much better on the higher bands so I might need to have two antennas strung up! My wife is gonna kill me if I ask her to help again....but I know she will help. )


Thanks again.

All the best,
Victor