80 Meters in a tiny space

So when I say tiny I mean tiny and I really want to get on 80 meters but I can't think of an antenna that would work other than a magnetic loop antenna which would still be a huge loop.

I could go down the magnetic loop route & see if it is possible to make a reasonable small loop for 80 but its gonna take a few tries to get one working for 80 meters.

A wire with some coils would be easier, all the wire antennas I've seen so far have all been too long. I've seen people folding wires around ceilings and in attics and crazy places and still making contacts although not on 80 but on 40 and if things are possible with 40 meters then why not see what can be done for 80 meters?

Miracle whip antenna's have a tiny telescopic antenna on them and people can still make contacts on these so surely its not impossible to build something for 80 meters in a small space?

How to get on the lower HF bands is a conundrum for many of us with space limitations. As long as you don't expect lots of easy voice comms like you might be getting on other bands, just get anything up, be that a mag loop like you have thought about, a wire with coils or wires folded back, or mobile ham stick type whips and see what happens, you might be surprised.

With a wire 10m band delta loop in the loft using a manual ATU to match it to 160m and 80m I have gotten some contacts in the log on both those bands with just 10 watts. Just digi contacts on 160m, but both phone and digi on 80m. It's far from efficient, but better than no antenna. If you can acquire or make a capable ATU, stick as much wire into it as you can in your small space and see where it gets you.

A magnetic loop especially on the lower frequencies and trying to make it smaller will give you headaches with regards bandwidth. You may not even have enough bandwidth to cover an SSB signal!

Similarly even if utilising small bandwidth efficient modes such as FT8 you may not be able to cover the 3kHz window at once and CW Morse will be a bit of a cat & mouse hunting game.

I never had much luck with magnetic loops except 20m upwards but was dismal compared to a horizontal longwire and experiments with frame loops for the lower bands were great for receive but appalling for transmit.

As Neal above mentions you would be surprised with what you can get away with though and my homebrew ATU with way too short bit of clothes line (68ft or about 20m) has given me continental contact down at 160m and much further afield on 80m. Before that I was managing with a bit of old electric lawnmower lead zig-zagging across my loft space even working down to 160m!

Always worth trying stuff out for yourself and maybe think about having a play with a coil loaded whip (such as a mobile type antenna or something homemade) remembering that you'll need a good ground plane or set of radials for a vertical 1/4 wave but can get away with less on a half wave type. (Many hang them out of the window from apartments and work great contacts. )



Half the fun at least for me and some of us here is seeing what we can get away with to work the bands. I'm sure with some ingenuity and night time work on those lower frequencies will yield you some results.

Have fun.

Perhaps a mobile antenna? You'd have to devise a ground plane or physical earth, but it should get you on 80m.

Ampro-80

https://moonrakeronline.com/ampro-80-3-5mhz-80-metre-mobile-antenna

Deb

I have thought about the Ampro-80... maybe two of them in a dipole connector... I may be able to make my own Ampro as its just coiled wire with a whip at the end...

Spider281 wrote:

I have thought about the Ampro-80... maybe two of them in a dipole connector... I may be able to make my own Ampro as its just coiled wire with a whip at the end...

I know you want to experiment and DIY, but the Ampro-80 is not expensive. The designers would  have tested it fully before placing it on the market. I doubt you would be able to build it for the price it's selling for anyway.

Not sure if using two as a dipole would work as basically the Ampro-80 is an end fed antenna and may have some sort of concealed loading or matching.

Deb

I use a mag loop down to 40m. Anything lower starts to get large as you say-  plus build and tuning becomes a precision task! Though I've seen 80m loops utilising 2 or even 3 'parallel' loops to really get the size down.

Otherwise, not tried, but I've seen a few examples online of usable 80m antennas using the 'Slinky'. (the coiled toy). Might be a good project to try, but again tuning, power & efficiency trade-offs.

I sympathise - I too can only go down to 40m at the moment - if you build a small 80m antenna let us know!