80 Meter Full Wave Loop Ham Radio Antenna

80 Meter Full Wave Loop Ham Radio Antenna or Amateur Radio Antenna. This antenna is resonant at 3.650 MHz

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Flag Pole Antenna

[davidc]

Good job, and this is what antenna tuners are for. I'll take a quote out of Chapter 2 in the Antenna handbook. "Please recognize that an antenna need not be resonant in order to be an effective radiator. There is in fact nothing magic about having a resonant antenna, provided of course that you can devise some efficient means to feed the antenna. Many amateurs use non-resonant (even random-length) antennas fed with open-wire transmission lines and antenna tuners. They radiate signals just as well as those using coaxial cable and resonant antennas, and as a bonus they usually can use these antenna systems on multiple frequency bands."

[lapinebob]

I am a new ham KJ7VUL and have been working on an OCFD for 80 meters with the balun at my barn and the legs running out to a couple trees. I had a 1.1 at 3.47 using my Nano VNA and wanted to move to at least 3.5 by trimming the legs. After doing a lot of trimming and never getting it to move much I attached it to my RTL-SDR and then I didn't anything but noise. I don't have my general and don't have an HF radio yet. I probably trimmed too much so I gave up for the night. I had a great signal from 3.5 to 54 before I started trimming. Ha Ha! Sometimes it is better to leave well enough alone. This morning I will try to lengthen it out and start all over. I am using RG6 braid trying to widen the usable band width.

[coziii.]

My grandpa was WB5JYC.


38 years later I’m studying for my tech
And hopefully get his call sign .

We are from Oklahoma, I’m in Davenport

[RhythmicSensations]

I played around like this for some time before finally getting a vertical antenna. I had constructed a dual loop for 80m antenna which worked well on 40m and even better on 20m. The problem when trying to use it on 80m was height. When I got my calculator and checked to see how far it needed to be off the ground (1/4 wave) I realized that I wasn't going to meet the required 67 foot minimum needed to get the signal going toward the horizon. The hight was okay for 40m and 20m, but my city lot without adiquite trees wasn't going to work out, unless I planned on my signal going strait up.

[smehy]

If you can, put a reflector about 1 Ft above ground about 5% longer, and you will have a good GAIN antenna and NVIS but also for DX on 80m. The reflector will give you some 6 dB better signal up to the ionsphere, where it can do some good /better performance. GL & 73 de Bjoern

[johnpeterson]

Great video. Some HOAs prohibit weather antennas but would allow weather stations. An advantage of that scenario is that it would more easily explain the wires going to the boxes.

[billtheslink]

Great video. Good solution for HOA. I own my own home with no restrictions and am putting up one for 160 as the low band. I am feeding with ladder line. That way I can load anywhere. Wouldn't be able to hide ladder line easy though. Thanks for the idea on springs. 73 W8PEF

[abgc]

Rich. Love the 80 meter loop with the 2.5 to 1 balun. Mine is a little too long. SWR good on all FT8 frequencies except 80.
de ab5gc

[dougtaylor]

Wonder if feeding with window line would help.
Love the bird houses. If somebody ask about the wires just say the keep they houses from flopping around in the wind.

[bluestarindustrialarts]

you can probably reduce some of that SWR by taking the coax feed line out of a conductive pipe no?

[forgetyourlife]

While the tuner is convenient your swr (as I’m sure you know) is quite high for a coax feed loop and it looked like you had a lot of it. 100ft? It might pay to ad some wire.

[elkbow]

Correct formula is 1005/frequency. Would put you at 283' vs 263'. Usually would leave you slightly long, but much easier to cut down length rather than add.

Also, did you measure the impedance. Because of velocity factors of different insulated wires, generally a 4:1 balun works better.

[JayNGO]

Someone told me today to feed the loop with a 9:1 unun. I’ve never heard of this. I’ve heard of 9:1 baluns with loops. I’ve used 6:1, 4:1 and 1:1. Maybe the unun is the key 🤷🏼‍♂️ using open wire feeder here not coax.

[nclife]

Thanks for sharing ! I'm putting mine up now. Hope to QSO with you. 73s from KU4XU.

[richarde]

what do the birds think? it's probably like a little sauna inside when you run some power

[carlsartor]

I had one of these when I lived in NJ (1.3ac. lot) wet when I moved to WV ( 35 ac.) I had too many trees in the way to put one up. I now live in NC (.66 ac. lot) and might possibly have enough room to put one up. I got the OK from the neighbor to hang one corner off one of his trees.
The one I used did not have any balun as per the 11/1985 article in QST by W0MHS and ARRL 1991 hand book page 33.6. How does you's work with only three support points?
I really liked mine and made contacts as far as Australia, S Africa and Easter Island
N2VXL

[JA-fybn]

Love how you camouflaged the whole thing. How did it work out?

[jwnagy]

Cool video. A few weeks ago I purchased hard drawn #12 for my 80 meter delta loop, which I will be putting up in a few weeks. I have a 40 meter delta loop up, and it works great.

How does your loop perform?

Jeff W3AAB

[scottthomas]

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