In article .com,
wrote:

Has anyone had a "bad", as in less then stellar performance, with a
Wellbrook ALA 1530 loop antenna?

Given the almost sacred refference the Wellbrook is held in I have
debated asking this question. I have a ALA 1530 that is part of a
trade that I am looking at and guys I just don't get it. This antenna
is reputed to be the cat's meow, but I have found it marginal at
best. A north country active antenna is nearly it's match and the 3rd
harmonic of a local MW (770KHz) is S3 on the Wellbrook. A Lankford
Active Dipole stomps it in gain, IP2 and IP3 and for directivity.

I am wondering if this antenna is defective or if it is a case of the
Emperors New Clothes. I have tried loops several times in the last 30
years and always give up becuase I have never found the reported
imunity against local QRM to be true. I am building a copy of the
WL1030 (http://wl1030.com/), but I don't understand the fascination
with loops. What am I missing?

For MW DX "big" air loops make sense. Good directivity to null out an
offending signal. I notice Ron Harding uses McKay 100E with a phaser
to achieve good nulls. For HF the sky wave "smears" both the desired
and unwanted signals making a null very iffy.


Receivers used in this test:
R2000
R8B
R390
R392
The R390 and R392 where not tested at my home but at a friend's home
where I have them stored. While I like both the R390 and R392, they
are somewhat awkward to rapidly tune from one frequency to a wildly
seperated one.

I don't know what to tell you about your experience with loop antennas.
My experience and many others is contrary to yours. Loop antennas are
not a fascination just a good design. I've never used the Wellbrook
antennas so I don't know the construction details. Maybe the antenna is
not constructed properly.

Your complaint about IP2 and IP3 concerns the amplifier design not the
antenna design.

--
Telamon
Ventura, California