magnetic loop antenna - antennas - radio

mashoo - radio - antennas

magnetic loop antenna

about a week ago [end of 2007?], i abandoned my magnetic loop antenna for 10 to 30 megahertz, because i was unhappy with its high swr near 30 megahertz; i had achieved low swr with a previous incarnation of the magloop, but that might be because i tested it with the full operational length of coaxial feeder (about 30 metres) instead of the 5 metres i used for testing this one;

the advice i would offer anyone wishing to construct an antenna like this is that it should be tested (and eventually installed) away from metallic objects; any such object within a loop diameter can give misleading results; also, i think the 30 megahertz swr was lower when i temporarily substituted a smaller capacitor for my home-made unit, so perhaps that is an important factor; and, if you find yourself making the coupling loop very much bigger than 1/5 of the main loop diameter, stop and find another solution; i tried to fix the swr by enlarging the coupling loop; i came close, but by that time the coupling loop was as large as the main loop and the bandwidth of the antenna had ballooned;

one of the first magloop pages i saw was on4ceq; at about the same time, i found the antenna modelling software of g4fgq; i have used that software (magloop4 and others) ever since, though a simpler, os-independent alternative for magloops is available from aa5tb; information about motor-driven capacitor designs is available at la6nca; sm0vpo designed an alternative servo-based circuit

blog entries

The antenna is a magnetic loop, constructed from 4.5 metres of 500mm aluminium foil, folded once. It's hanging from the curtain rail in the next room, the rather heavy, high-value capacitor perched precariously in the middle. A 32cm diameter coupling loop sits in the cradle of the foil loop, forcing its larger sibling into a rather uncomfortable triangle. Being unlicensed, I tuned the unit by turning up the computer speakers and adjusting the capacitor plates by hand, moving them and taking my hand away many times to achieve a reasonable signal of background noise. But still the noise level is very low. If only some stations were around.

I heard a Scottish amateur station on the 40m band earlier, where an ordinary wire gave me mostly noise.

According to `magloop4', I ought to be able to tune down to 2.690 MHz, with this 2000pF capacitor. However, I could swear that I managed something lower than that earlier: 2.3?? MHz, with less than full capacitance.

Anyway, it should prove an interesting toy, as long as I don't receive too many more shocks from the PL-259, when I try to unscrew it to compare signals. :)

Oops - I forgot to mention that the pre-amp is inline.

2005-05-19T16:20:46Z
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makeshift magloop overlooking the back garden

2005-05-20T09:38:38Z
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~15 seconds of 4953 kHz, then the same of 5328, then 5343, then 6913. This demonstrates nicely the narrow bandwidth of a magloop which apparently has not been correctly wired until now. The thirty seconds of Shannon Volmet was nice and strong - S9.

2005-06-07T21:52:30Z
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remote control unit for my servo-tuned magnetic loop antenna

2005-06-09T14:42:26Z
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my work space at the back of the kitchen

2005-06-09T21:02:26Z
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butterfly capacitor rotor plates on on4ceq instructions

2005-06-15T20:02:34Z
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kevin pietersen on the back page of a newspaper; drill and files for construction of a massive magnetic loop

2005-06-23T10:02:52Z
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home-made capacitor on my midi keyboard

2006-08-21T11:25:42Z
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testing my magnetic loop antenna on the citizens' band; a local operator starts to lose her european dx contact

2006-08-21T19:18:42Z
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magnetic loop antenna on my bedroom door

2006-08-23T13:34:38Z
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magnetic loop antenna mounted in the sun on the pear tree stump

2006-08-24T15:46:56Z
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magnetic loop antenna mounted in the sun on the pear tree stump; willow tree waves in the breeze

2006-08-24T15:48:24Z
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remote tuning my magnetic loop antenna after a change of band; first listening for maximum reception, then fine-tuning with cw

2006-09-30T16:24:27Z
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magnetic loop antenna silhouette

2006-10-04T06:10:14Z
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yellow willow tree moves in the breeze; magnetic loop antenna beneath it

2006-12-03T10:20:02Z
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yellow willow tree moves in the breeze; magnetic loop antenna beneath it

2006-12-03T10:26:06Z
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magnetic loop antenna and christmas lights

2006-12-21T18:02:26Z
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stereo, tools and epoxy board dust on the kitchen table

2007-03-24T12:17:50Z
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copper-clad epoxy board (capacitor rotor) in a washing-up bowl of etchant in the back yard

2007-05-18T17:35:36Z
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funnel and plastic bottle supported by logs awaits the etchant

2007-05-18T17:36:22Z
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the completed capacitor rotor (copper-clad epoxy board)

2007-05-18T20:06:06Z
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the capacitor stator (copper-clad epoxy board) in a freezer bag of etchant in the back yard

2007-05-19T16:38:36Z
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the multimeter measures 15 picofarads from the capacitor

2007-05-20T10:25:54Z
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the multimeter measures 250 picofarads from the capacitor

2007-05-21T10:22:00Z
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linear capacitor on the kitchen table; driven by mfa como drills motor

2007-05-24T13:25:38Z
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rotary capacitor on the kitchen table; driven by futaba servo

2007-05-24T14:17:28Z
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rotary capacitor on the kitchen table; rotor shaft

2007-05-24T14:18:10Z
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stator shaft; aluminium foil connecting stators together

2007-05-24T14:19:12Z
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aluminium foil magnetic loop antenna on my bedroom door; faraday coupling loop; rotary capacitor

2007-05-24T21:56:56Z
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having established a capacitance range of 11 to 190 pf and made the motion reasonably smooth, i took the skeleton of the old loop to make a new one; there is more foil in this main loop, using 300 mm kitchen foil, folded twice, for a 75mm effective (?) width; the previous loop used the same foil cut in half, before folding just once, for the same final width; the motion is generally good enough to make tuning simple; however, tuning on some bands is a little fiddly, due to the capacitor 'sticking'; (it's really friction brought about by warped epoxy board, rather than jam or something); at 10.1 mhz, where the capacitance is highest, the sticking is quite pronounced, but tuning can be achieved in time; tuning, yes, but not a low swr; not with significant power used; not on any frequency; the old loop required a much larger coupling loop than was forecast; 90 cm perimeter, rather than the 60 cm predicted; however, having adjusted the coupling loop of this 'thicker' loop four times, i perceive that the coupling loop would have to be larger still; perhaps quite a lot larger; a motor instead of the servo would prevent the sticking; the only other matter i can think of now is the foil tags which connect the static plates to each other; they are not very big and are currently only taped to the plate surfaces; it wouldn't take much (hopefully) to dismantle the capacitor a bit to attach the tags to the threaded rod for a better connection; but the tags would still be small; but that should be alright; and there is another thing; i was able to compare some 14 mhz signals on the magloop and the skywire; the magloop (for whatever reasons) removed the strange noises, which seemed to be local computery/electronic stuff; but the signals were way down; 9 and below compared to 9+20 (all with pre-amp); perhaps the magloop was suffering from proximity to other conductors

2007-05-24T22:12:00Z
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servo-driven rotary capacitor being turned from minimum to maximum

2007-05-25T10:53:04Z
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skywire loop antenna / magnetic loop antenna comparison; f4ecj; on7usb

2007-05-25T13:08:51Z
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after disassembling, connecting, reassembling and rebalancing the capacitor plates, i remeasured the capacitance range; it is now 7 - 200 pf; which is nice; 150mm folded once is now the main loop; the coupling loop perimeter is now about half that of the main loop; 1.4 metres; i don't know where the difference has come from; or why the original coupling loop was so far in excess of the recommended size, being 0.9m as opposed to 0.6m, which recommendation would have been by magloop4 for 10 mhz, i suppose; the only difference should be the capacitor

2007-05-25T14:03:00Z
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i forgot to mention the swr results; i just put 60 watts into the loop on 18 and 10 mhz; swr 1:1 was maintained on each; earlier, 28 mhz took 30 watts with swr 1.5:1

2007-05-25T14:39:00Z
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when g4crt called out earlier, i was testing the router; i used the skywire loop; ma had returned from town with a couple of ferrite rings from maplin; i tried the rings on both patch cables and the phone cable; at one point, noticing no difference between the noise level with the cables and that without them, i concluded that the noise pertained to the dsl connection, rather than the intranet; later, using the largest capacitor available, i tuned the 10-30 mhz magnetic loop to the same frequency; it was hung on my shower room door; turning the loop, so that the null was in the direction of the router (door open 90 degrees), the speakers up and opening (from the other side) the other door, i returned to the router to test it again; this time, i noticed that emissions were significantly lower with the dsl connection running and no intranet cables attached; the addition of the cable to my room returned the noise to a high level; and then the removal of the phone cable resulted in nearly no reduction in noise, if any; i therefore conclude that the intranet is manageable, provided that the antenna is situated at a distance from it; that's not a good conclusion, because the intranet cable 'antenna' might be more potent than the dsl connection; one more thing; i did not think to try the 'dsl connection only' configuration with the antenna turned through 90 degrees; that might have affected the noise level

2007-05-29T19:23:00Z
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ant small magnetic loop, 1m over the sorrel, 2000 pf capacitor, of which 434 pf (if setting unchanged before 20070620T1206Z reading) used; testing signal-to-noise ratio

2007-06-19T13:25:43Z
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10 metre roll of aluminium foil on my bed

2007-06-19T17:28:28Z
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bamboo chimes, unused bird table, fatsia japonica and magnetic loop antenna away from the house

2007-06-19T17:35:18Z
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bamboo skeleton of a large magloop; wood pigeons

2007-06-20T16:40:58Z
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large magloop complete with aluminium foil

2007-06-21T11:26:16Z
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large magloop complete with aluminium foil; close-up of paper clips

2007-06-21T11:28:34Z
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ant magloop, perimeter 10m, in bay tree, coupling loop perimeter 5m; some signs of reasonable swr (1.5:1), and the range appears to be as predicted (down to 3.5 mhz or nearly so) (not sure about the higher limit, though), but the loop picks up mostly servo circuit noise on the 5 mhz frequencies and below, which precludes tuning by ear (as was the case with the motor-driven circuit); also, the application of power appears to render the servo circuit impotent (not a problem with the motor)

2007-06-23T10:43:04Z
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the noise on this channel seems too much; perhaps the larger loop is more susceptible to electrical signals; perhaps that's because it's slightly closer to the router circuit; perhaps because there are metal objects nearby; in any case, this does not feel like a good project; (also, that loose servo control box connection is playing up again, making this experiment more of a pain;) granted, the noise of the router on the skywire is greater; oh, and one of the top bamboos broke; probably because i gambled that the string connecting top and bottom would not be required

2007-06-23T10:43:10Z
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ladder, step-ladder, copper pipe and magloop

2007-06-23T11:37:30Z
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large magloop in bay tree

2007-06-23T11:38:08Z
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large magloop in bay tree (close-up)

2007-06-23T11:38:48Z
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just finished building and experimenting with 3m perimeter magloop, old plastic water pipe (from the cottage), thin white wire conductor, coupling loop perimeter 0.6m; az 325; now using it

2007-06-23T19:06:20Z
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no good; think the upper range of the biggest capacitor has disappeared; back to skywire

2007-06-23T19:33:00Z
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what i thought was a failing in the magloop capacitor earlier was really the tip of its pl-259, which i have now re-soldered; this frequency tunes fine

2007-06-23T20:39:19Z
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bk; added a parallel wire to the stand-in primary capacitor in the link-coupled atu; the big capacitor is back on the magloop

2007-06-23T20:54:10Z
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mfa como drill motor-powered rotary capacitor wired up to power supply and multimeter for capacitance measurement

2007-06-27T14:04:04Z
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mfa como drill motor-powered rotary capacitor, wired up to power supply and multimeter for capacitance measurement; looks like minimum ~10 picofarads and maximum ~200 picofarads

2007-06-27T14:04:20Z
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ant main magloop, on door, az 260; fried my brain a bit, testing it with coupling loop as big as main loop up to 30w on 20, 15 and 10m

2007-09-24T10:47:21Z
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more testing now, with start of coupling loop right up next to the start of the main loop

2007-09-24T10:47:31Z
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extended (> 3m) coupling loop produces better swr on 30m; therefore, reduce main loop width; actually, i'll try something else first; i seem to remember the swr on 20m being okay; perhaps lower the coupling loop again

2007-09-24T11:17:43Z
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aluminium foil magnetic loop antenna on my bedroom door, complete with massive capacitor, sleeve choke balun and abxkoppel; the coupling loop has grown way too large

2007-09-24T11:57:54Z
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bizarre close-up of a nasty implementation of abxkoppel

2007-09-24T11:59:42Z
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massive capacitor hanging from the hook on my bedroom door

2007-09-24T12:00:46Z
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coupling loop taped to the aluminium foil main loop

2007-09-24T12:01:36Z
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anyway, about my magloop; i have photographed it in the condition in which an swr of 1:1 was achieved on 30m and 10m, using 30w (got fried again on 10m); 30m would object if the top of the coupling loop were too high; 10m would object if it were too low; perhaps the length of the capacitor was a factor in this discrepancy, a longer one being used for the 20 and 30m bands; since i did not want to do too much taping/untaping, i did not attempt any other adjustments of the coupling loop; however, i did end up remembering the twisting of the coupling loop ends, from online descriptions of abxkoppel; this had the effect of the swr 1:1 condition being maintained when i removed my hand from the capacitor knob; when i had first tried the twisting, 30m had objected, because the top of the coupling loop was too high or the coupling loop was too small or both; anyway, it's nice not to have sacrificed the thickness of the main loop; i still wonder whether the aluminium material is also a factor in 3 metres of coupling loop wire being required; if i had some copper foil, i might be able to prove this

2007-09-24T12:18:19Z
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testing magloop with old linear capacitor; just measured the capacitor i used yesterday, as tuned for 30m; only ~ 105 pf, whereas my capacitor offers 176 pf

2007-09-25T07:55:34Z
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i need less capacitance than the minimum available here, so that i can tune above this frequency; i'll build a new linear capacitor, i suppose

2007-09-25T07:56:54Z
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quick flick; good demo of loop low noise

2007-09-25T08:29:05Z
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breakfast delayed; i'm examining boosted magloop audio; wondering what a small signal would be like with the narrow cw filter

2007-09-25T08:39:33Z
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a magnetic loop antenna main conductor made from 15mm copper tube hastily bent into shape; i wanted to see whether it behaved differently to to aluminium foil i could not get to work the way i wanted

2007-09-25T17:55:52Z
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i've been playing with the magloop again today; the most recent development is that i have cut the aluminium foil prototype from 3 metres to 2.8 metres, which is the perimeter of the magloop deployed previously; at nearly 30 mhz, the capacitance required is 13pf; magloop4 suggests that the maximum capacitance (for 10 mhz) would be ~ 190pf, with an efficiency at that lowest frequency of just over 50%, at 3m high over average ground; the minimum capacitance is the worry at the moment, since my preliminary fiddlings with the remains of my old linear capacitor have yielded minimum values of about 12pf; i would like more breathing space than 1 pf; smaller plates would cause less stray capacitance, and my current idea is to extend my linear capacitor design to multiple mobile plates; also, i wonder whether the so-called stators should be the mobile ones; anyway, it's been a long day; goodnight

2007-09-25T20:16:19Z
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one more thing about yesterday's endeavours with the magloop; i spent a lot of time unfurling the main loop and trying a smaller coupling loop and such things, in an attempt to explain the discrepancy between magloop4's capacitance predictions and the values i was getting from my multimeter; as with the ~60cm perimeter loop i experimented with (before constructing my original magloop), i had forgotten about the long test leads connecting the main loop to the capacitor; with little or no test leads, results became normal; and one more `one more thing'; using magloop4 and my multimeter, i came to the conclusion that the equivalent diameter of my aluminium foil `flat tube' is about 70mm

2007-09-26T06:39:47Z
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motor-driven linear capacitor reading 14 picofarads at minimum

2007-09-28T08:02:02Z
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motor-driven linear capacitor on the kitchen table; the long white wires were designed to disconnect the motor when the capacitor had reached one of its extremes

2007-10-02T16:49:18Z
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threaded rod passing through bracket on mobile plate

2007-10-02T16:50:16Z
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the range of the loop is too high; it reaches down to 10.1 mhz, but not enough for swr 1:1 with 30 watts; and there is room at the top of the range (i.e. the capacitor goes past 30 mhz); so i'm going to restore the 3 metre main loop

2007-10-03T10:24:23Z
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aluminium foil magnetic loop antenna on my bedroom door, wrapped in some protective green plastic sheet (bin bag); the coupling loop is much too large, rendering the antenna pretty useless

2007-10-03T10:27:06Z
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another option would be to add capacitance to the capacitor, probably by adding a small, fixed unit to the variable; anyway, i reached my limit yesterday when the coupling loop size/position issue reappeared; despite some fiddling, retaping and cutting, i was unable to achieve good swr at the top and the bottom of the range with 30 watts; (the retaping is surely unnecessary, by the way, so i'll dig out some clothes pegs, next time;) that will be in the next few days (not something i thought i'd be saying yesterday, though i was conscious at the end of the experiment that i should not burn any bridges); i suppose i'll resize the former and make the loop 3 metres in perimeter; i hope that will not be too much; i think there are a couple of picofarads to play with at the low end (high end of frequency range); before i dismantle the loop, however, i must check that the loop is properly connected to the capacitor and that there is continuity between capacitor plates (to validate yesterday's testing); and then, since the lower mobile plate is now screwed to the upper, i'll see whether the screws involved in the safety circuits are strong enough to halt the motion of the capacitor; i suspect this has already occurred, when the upper circuit came loose, but it needs to be checked; it would be good to obviate the safety circuit; it makes this unit rather complicated

2007-10-04T07:16:46Z
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after a long evening with various lengths of abxkoppel yesterday and a similar amount of effort made today with faraday loops, i have found a degree of satisfaction with the following setup; main loop length 2.89m; coupling loop (abxkoppel) length 2.8m, starting nearly at the top of the main loop; this configuration will achieve swr 1:1 from bottom to top, using 30 watts; however, the length of coupling loop appears to have affected the tuning to such a degree that 10.1 mhz is now the lowest available frequency, whereas lower than ten was observed before; also, the 1:1 match at the top of the frequency range is only good as far as 30w; the swr begins to slip after that, albeit slightly; by the way, it had not occurred to me to try any of these coupling loops upside-down; the abxkoppel is fed from above; the faraday loop from above; one more experiment occurs to me; a reduction in the width of the main loop should lower the frequency range, and might also make the matching at the top end more comfortable

2007-10-05T21:43:02Z
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ant on bedroom door

2007-10-06T11:45:14Z
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larger aluminium foil magnetic loop antenna, featuring motor-driven linear capacitor; the coupling loop is now probably larger than the the main loop; the swr wasn't bad, but there was precious little radiation

2007-10-06T17:20:44Z
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recording of german speech using indoor magloop

2007-10-08T07:32:03Z
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one loop-capacitor connection ruptured during installation; the other half-broke, during repairs; both have been hard-taped to anything stable; swr has slipped to 1.5:1; hopefully, some tuning (not yet available) will put it right

2007-10-08T11:28:12Z
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recording of italian speech using outdoor magloop

2007-10-08T11:31:30Z
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it works

2007-10-08T12:03:30Z
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switch motor direction; switch on/off

2007-10-08T13:32:28Z
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the last recording i made shows that the pre-amp provides a superior audio signal than the amplified no-pre-amp one; i could boost the signal at the transceiver output, but that distorts the signal, since it is a driven output (for a speaker)

2007-10-08T13:39:53Z
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i'm about to take the ladder down; (again; i took it down before lashing the capacitor to the top of the bay tree;) before i do, let me share an important detail about the capacitor remote control; with the button on the left hand side, the capacitance goes up (frequency down) when the top of the rocker switch is pressed and down (frequency up) when the bottom of the rocker switch is pressed; i can imagine myself having forgotten that

2007-10-08T13:47:30Z
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turned gain up on transceiver for quiet station; no distortion, but lots of hiss, like amplifying the signal using software; the pre-amp sounds nicer

2007-10-08T15:38:06Z
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g4jcz calling vk3mo (recorded using outdoor magloop); even after measures taken to reduce noise from my broadband connection, i would probably not have heard this on the skywire loop antenna

2007-10-09T11:08:33Z
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i'm testing a 15 mm copper pipe magloop, length presumably 3 m; the coupling loop is a 60 cm perimeter faraday loop; required capacitance for tuning is 8 pf on the 12 metre band and 82 pf on the 30 metre band; like the `operational' magloop, swr 1:1 was much easier to achieve at the lower frequencies; the bandwidth is not as wide on such frequencies as the operational magloop, but it is not as tight as the calculator (aa5tb, at the moment) predicts either (50 khz between -3 db points, using 30 watts)

2007-10-11T10:33:00Z
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aa5tb says that the bandwidth should be that wide (about 60 khz) for a 1 mm diameter main conductor; i've just tested it and it's true; as the diameter increases, so the bandwidth should decrease; so why does the copper pipe have the same bandwidth? perhaps the connections should be cleaner

2007-10-11T11:01:29Z
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the `operational' loop does not transmit very well; that could have something to do with its being hidden at the top of a bay tree, but it's probably mostly due to the coupling loop being so large; when i was unable to get good swr at the top frequency during testing, it seems that i should have made the main loop smaller instead of the coupling loop larger; certainly, i have tried a 2.4 metre perimeter loop in the bedroom this evening and it has given good swr; perhaps i will be able to get it somewhat closer to the 3 metres i had originally intended, but that's not too important; at least i have found a way to make progress; while the operational loop is down for adjustment, i might adjust the capacitor too; the mobile plates could do with a trim, i think, to increase the clearance between their sides and the rods that hold the static plates; i have observed that there might be flashover at maximum capacitance

2007-10-12T20:52:58Z
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i tried a few more tricks with the magloop today, before happening to swing the door on which it has been mounted for each testing session; the tuning changed dramatically, and i was left to surmise that the objects on the shelving behind the door could have been responsible for the poor results not just of this loop, but of the redeployment of the original loop and another loop since; i have recalled that, due to the magloop's high sensitivity to metal objects, i carried out my initial testing on the first loop with it mounted on the plastic pole on which it was to be deployed; there is a plastic pole in the back yard; i'll try using it tomorrow; at least my redesign/refurbishment of the capacitor was worthwhile today; i shaved the mobile plates as planned and moved the links between static plates from the sides to the top, reinforcing them with washers; the intention is that the loop ends will now connect by being squeezed beneath the bottom-most static plate, with the same pressure strengthening the inter-plate links

2007-10-13T21:10:00Z
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i miss my magloop; i heard a nice big signal earlier (below 10 mhz); but, when i adjusted my secondary capacitor to tune the circuit, the noise came up more than the signal did; *sigh*

2008-05-20T12:14:39Z
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