Start of 80 metres horizontal loop antenna project April 2021

Horizontal loop antenna for 80 Metres, start of project. This video shows the start of a project of a project for a relatively low level loop aerial as shown on page 122 of William I Orr’s 1978 Antenna Handbook and page 5-20 of the 20th Edition of the ARRL Antenna Handbook, in that they call it a SKY WIRE and it’s shows hanging majestically and magically from sky hooks with no visible means of support above a neat little Ham Shack completely devoid of any obstruction! My working conditions are somewhat different. Before getting the wire into the air I have to lay my aerial wire out over very prickly gorse bushes that snatch and hold onto lengths of wire like a spiders web grabs a fly, man it’s blooming tiresome but once I get the wire in the air it’ll be fine. As you’ll see in the video I have inverted ‘V’s for 20 and 80 meters so you might wonder why I want the 80m loop. The simple reason is the reception is fantastically different, it’s a real joy to listen to 80m on the loop but unless I have it up high it’s never going to be a world beater for transmission. I don’t want to put it up high as I don’t want too much hardware in the air and I believe that with the wire some 6 to 10 feet above the ground it’ll be exhalant on receive and hopefully adequate for transmitting around Europe and the UK. (I'm on the west coast of Wales.) I will follow up with another video (s) as I make progress with the project. What I can tell you is that the books suggest an over-all length of 272 feet for the loop when at a height of 40 foot but with the loop sitting on the bushes at around 3 to 6 feet above the ground the resonant length was, (on my previous loop,) 235 feet. For that previous aerial I made a 9:11 air-cored matching transformer and that gave me an SWR of 1:16 at 3.692 MHz and the SWR was useable over the whole band. It was fed with a 50 ohm coax cable. I think that being so close to the ground the tuning cure was quite flat as opposed to that of a sharp high Q setup. As I say in the video it’ll be better on Rx rather than Tx but it’s worth it to get rid of the QRM/QRN. Tryout any size unturned loop antenna and listen to 80 metres and I think you’ll be surprised just how well it works hanging on a fence!! I forgot to say, whereas I had S9 of background noise on 80 metres with my inverted 'V' antenna I only had S2 of background noise with the old low level loop.
Thanks for your interest.
All the very best to everyone.
Kind Regards . . . Andy
GW0JXM

[@chrisdado]

A resonant loop or terminated folded dipole are my favourite receive antennas, so much quieter than verticals or OCF dipoles. Keep at it Andy. Shotcut is a nice free editor if you're looking for something less demanding than Premier. BTW those gorse flowers make a wonderful home made wine.

[@barryfleischer6553]

We really enjoy your work.

[@AllAmericanFiveRadio]

Nice setup Andy

[@AndyDaviesByTheSea]

Thanks Rick, man I don't know about you but life seams so busy I've hardly had any time to look at your videos. The house we had built is finished but there's lots of jobs to do making it homely, building cupboards and creating a garden that looks like a beach and building flower beds out of concrete and rendering them etc. Anyway I hope that you and the family are well All the very best . . . Andy

[@PastelComGini]

Hi, Andy. You don't need editing at all. But if you think you do, there's this free open source software KDEnlive, I guess it would suffice for simple cuts/ transitions. Your videos always have interesting content, and this is what really matters IMO.

[@ChrisSPCs]

Hi Andy, if you're using a windows PC, Id recommend Davinci Resolve for video editing if you're having issues with adobe premier/products. The free version is very featurefull, while at the same time being mainly about the simple features. Cutting and editing together clips and transitions with the timeline editor is really simple and easy for quickly throwing together videos, and it does have more complex functionality if needed. To always answer the final question, yep, interesting video.

[@AndyDaviesByTheSea]

Hi Chris the main issue with my Adobe Premiere Elements video software is that I cant upload directly to KZbin from it. It used to be easy but Microsoft blocked that some time ago and I have to use an additional program to change the format and a 10 minute video takes ages to format and reformat and upload etc. Regards . . . Andy

[@barryfleischer6553]

I think I was stung by a bee while watching this.

[@AndyDaviesByTheSea]

Hi Barry I haven't been stung yet but when cutting back, digging and messing about in the bushes and long grass I always stop and watch for a few moments just to see if I'm about to dig into a hornets nest. I had a narrow escape in a previous garden. Regards . . . Andy