Mag loop construction guide – online Zoom event – all welcome!

Magnetic Loop Antenna Capacitor Kit of Parts

Mag Loop antennas are becoming increasingly popular transmitting antennas for the lower frequency HF bands. This is because of their rather small size being suited to city residential sections or apartment buildings and the improved receive signal to noise performance over traditional wire antennas.

Online Shed Workshop

An online Zoom workshop on Sunday 6 September from 1300 hours NZST will cover the design and DIY construction of a 40m Magnetic Loop Antenna. (Mag Loop).

The workshop features a PowerPoint presentation by Bernard Robbins ZL2BD and an opportunity to have questions answered. The full content of the presentation will be published on the website ZL2WB.com in the week following the Zoom meeting.

To register for the workshop email us

Purchase the High Voltage Butterfly Capacitor for $80 incl. postage

Branch 50 NZART recently launched a trading table. The branch plans to sell a range of kitsets and books to amateur radio operators. Our kits will be designed to get more people active in our hobby on the HF bands and to make construction projects easier for the ordinary amateur operator – simple kits that make a difference to your operating experience.

The 40m magnetic loop capacitor is now available for sale through our trading table. It is just $80 including shipping for the full kit. To order go here. To download more information or the manual go here.

Don’t take too long to place your order as the level of interest has been high from ZL amateurs, and we have only a few left in stock. There may be a delay of a few weeks before these are back in stock once sold out.

ZL2BD HV Magnetic Loop Butterfly Capacitor

The now very well regarded high voltage butterfly capacitor kit designed by Bernard Robbins ZL2BD will be launched by Branch 50 (Wellington) NZART in a couple of months time.

This will be your opportunity to acquire a butterfly capacitor suitable for an HF transmitting magnetic loop. The kit details and price will be available shortly, but enquiries can already be made to: tradingtable@zl2wb.com

Our shed workshop on 6 September 2020 will be an online Zoom session open to any amateur operator interesting in magnetic loop antennas. Bernard will be giving you all the details on transmitting magnetic loop antennas and he will demonstrate how to assemble the capacitor to make it easy for you to build the kit. It is dead simple to build!

Branch 50/74 Lunch and Shed Workshop Event

On 1 March from 12 noon -3pm we met over a light lunch at Mike ZL1AXG’s QTH.

The Branch 50 NZART Committee ordered in a light finger-food lunch (savouries and sandwiches) as we were hosting Branch 74 for a combined branches event. Disappointingly, only two guests showed up … they were our guest speaker for the workshop, and one Branch 74 member! Mike noted that the year had not got off to a good start with few turning up for the combined branches BBQ organised by Kapiti Branch. It appears many amateurs simply don’t want to come out any more to events. However, complacency may well spell the end of amateur radio as we know it. Member attendances at most branches appear to be plummeting, even those that still have 100+ members on their books. Things are getting tougher for ham radio, with suburban QRM often sending the meter over s9 on the low bands, the sunspot cycle likely to be at its worst for some years, and Councils getting tougher in their district plans on amateur antennas (see the recent decision by Kapiti District Council).

It is likely that something radical will be required to breathe new life into our pastime. Maybe the new IC705? (just kidding!).

Putting aside the challenges for our hobby, our special guest presenter – Charlie Morris ZL2CTM – talked us through his approach to building homebrew transceivers. Charlie has built many working transceivers and uses them regularly, including on tramps into the bush.

Charlie Morris ZL2CTM talking about the two most important books needed by home constructors surrounded by a collection of homebrew txcvrs for 80m – 20m.

Charlie has a range of experimental radios using quite different techniques. They are mostly built inside Sistema lunch boxes, with full visibility of the “inner workings”. He has a global following of QRP and homebrew affiacondos who follow his latest creations. For example, check out his videos on Youtube and this review of an SDR design on Soldersmoke: http://soldersmoke.blogspot.com/2016/02/zl2ctms-teensy-sdr-ssb-superhet-very.html

Some wonderful hints were dropped, including a suggested order for constructing modules in the transceiver, how to use veroboard (matrix board) by placing all the components on one side of the board (the side with the tracks on it), how to bond a module to the ground plane so as to reduce the chances of unwanted feedback. Charlie also made a suggestion on how to switch the IF strip between TX and RX so you don’t crossover inputs and outputs using relays (hint: switch the mixer frequencies on your PLL device).

Charlie’s well received session ended with tea and coffee and a lot of chat amongst members with most members leaving around 3.45 pm. Charlie received many compliments and he provided a lot of stimulation for members. Maybe some of us will be buying those design manuals and building our own transceivers? For the Chair, it presents a challenge to move away (at least in the first stage) from a focus on getting the enclosure looking good, to coming up with new solutions to old problems by using a breadboard approach. i.e. it is time to use the box of processors being built up and have a play with a few IF strips, etc. Now if only there was time to do so!