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NOTE: As of September 18, 2004 I must raise the price of my receive loops. As that my construction costs, have risen. I've tried to delay any increase up until this point.

Several years ago a friend of mine (W7AE)(sk) and myself became interested in low band dxing. Lacking room for a beverage receiving antenna, we constructed several loop receiving antenna to see if we could find a suitable low /lower noise receiving antenna.

W7AE built the first loop for 160m following plans laid out in the ARRL Antenna Handbook. Encouraged by the results I built one for 80m. I found that with a proper pre-amp, such the Palomar series, or Ameco's PT-3 there was a significant lowering of noise, but the signals that I was unable to hear on my sloper now were quite workable using the receiving loop. For the past several years, we experimented with several different configurations , including a circular, and square loop. We found that the diamond configuration worked the best.The 80m version requires a pre-amp to bring the signal up to an acceptable quality. We've found that there is a one to two s unit difference (depending how high you set the gain on the preamp)in the lowering of noise. There have been several times that the loop has made the difference between working a DX station or not hearing him on my sloper.Though the antenna is not a beverage, we've found it to be a good alternative.

Click Here If you want me to construct one for you.

Click here If you wish to build one yourself.

The latest news, is that now I can accept Paypal. Click on the link that says "If you want me to construct one for you" for more details.

Please note that there is a new e-mail address and price increase on the 160/80m loop. (Component prices seem to be going up.)

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updated 09/18/2004


© 2004 by Spencer F. Ritchie