Ham radio contest weekend for the ARRL DX SSB contest. Here I am snagging French station F6KHM on 15 meters using 100 watts into my MFJ-1786 magnetic loop mounted just 4 feet off the ground.
Video Rating: 5 / 5
This video was taken at the ARRL 2010 Field Day site for the Gulf Coast Amateur Radio Club located in New Port Richey. This was our first attempt at flying a helium balloon with a long wire attached. We used a single conductor 24 gauge wire of 130 feet long. Made successful voice and digital contacts around the country with other clubs. A big thanks to Bill NG4L who recorded and edit this video.
Video Rating: 3 / 5
Nasty noise on receive.
I hope that rig has a processor / compressor since those heil ICM mics are typically not a good DX / Contesting mic due to having a more muffled sound. With the processor it should be fine.
If you can get hold of a Turner +3 CB desk mic and add a .01µƒd in series with the internal preamp output you’ll get rave audio reports. I even added a VR to adjust how much I want to bypass the bass filter capacitor which acts as a tone control.
Why not a 120′ center-fed coaxial vertical dipole for 80m!?!
(Cont from below)
If you have a decent CMC choke & 1:1 balun on the ground at the tuner / radio you could use the shield of the coax as the bottom half of the dipole, and just use some light gauge wire for the top half
~58′ of wire & ~58′ of coax will provide a vertical center-fed 80m dipole and the shield of the bottom half will radiate down to the CMC choke & 1:1 balun, necessary to keep RF out of the rig & mic.
Best to use a well shielded, metal mic and a real good ground rod system!
73
you guys are not the sharpest tools in the shed! LOL!
Wow… real rocket scientists… PLEASE STAY AWAY FROM OUR FIELD DAY!!!
So, I guess you are sold on the MFJ Loop? I have looked at this antenna for a while for portable use. Thanks for the video and 73. George, N0JRJ
Well, I’d say you get dipole performance but also a few advantages of small loops (low noise, small size, no counterpoise, no height minimum, etc). The downside is lots and lots of retuning.
Also, I think while this could be used portable quite easily, I’m going to permanently install mine and use my Buddipole for portable work.