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

Hi Terry,

I have a homebrew version of the Wellbrook shielded loop 7' in diameter. It
is in my woods on a short tower and rotator.
On 160M and 75M it is the same as my 80M inverted vee. It's a good performer
on MW/LW but not any real difference between it and a homebrew voltage probe
antenna with a 4' whip.

Loops are most useful where there is a single noise source that can be
nulled with the loop- other than that, it's a toss up.
There is still the wive's tale making the rounds that shielded loop are
immune to the E field noise - rubbish and well disproven in the literature.

So, in summary, I like mine for being a compact RX antenna for MW/LW, but at
least in my environment, not sure I would go to the trouble next time.

Dale W4OP
for PAR Electronics, Inc.

I am begining to think that many people over rate a loop because it has
lower over
all gain and therefore is quiter. Based on my experience with improved
detector and
audio chains I have come to understand that the signal to noise is the
only variable
that really matters. I wish my fancy HiFer beacon/test source had not
been fried
by Thor. Even the 13.xxMHz crsytal was toast! It would be interesting
to run some
real experiments to compare antennas the way I compared detectors and
post detection amplifiers.

BTW I have completly ripped out all of my coax and pulled down my
antennas.
Since I got rid of my desktop PC and I have gone to a laptop I found I
really needed
to redesign my radio desk. Since my antennas and coax have been up for
over 15
years, I decided to redo the whole mess.

Fall is a very good time to errect new antennas and I am going to
reroute all my coax
through 1/2" copper tubing that will be bonded to my perimeter ground
ring. An
electrician friend used his mini Ditch Witch to dig me a couple of
trenches. I hope
to have the antennas back up by Monday evening.

I typically research and build devcies in the summer, think about
antennas in teh
fall and do serious listening over the winter.

Terry