On Sunday 7 June Bernard ZL2BD provided us with an onlie Zoom shed workshop talk on active RX magnetic loops. As with all of his presentations, this was well researched and he had experimented with 5 different loops in drawing his conclusions.
A report is available below, and a presentation and commentary will be made available shortly on this website.
Magnetic Loop Antennas in general have encountered a resurgence recently for Amateur Radio. A key attribute that seems to have been rediscovered by many is the small physical size of antennas for the 3.5 – 30 MHz HF bands. This makes them an attractive solution particularly in urban environments where space for antennas is quite restricted. Another important attribute is the improved signal to noise performance on receive compared to larger conventional wire antennas.
Using an Active Mag loop receive-only antenna is another variation of Mag Loops that provides the benefits of a low-noise receiving system without having to meet the stringent low ohms loop and high voltage tuning capacitor that is required for transmitting.