In article .com,
"Ken Wilson" wrote:

Dale Parfitt wrote:
A nice page written by some amateur drawing wrong conclusions.
Following his logic coax cable would not shield the center
conductor either for example since the coax has to be open on
both ends. He quotes a lot of good information and then spouts
conclusion that don't follow.

The author of the page is one of the most respected amateurs, an
active consulting engineer, designer of the DX engineering Low band
line of active antennas, and widely published. I have read
identical conclusions in the IEEE Journal on EM.

The null of the loop is its best feature. We agree there.

Very interesting post's on this subject so far. Sure is nice to have
some topics that are about DX & radios.

I did a bunch of CW contesting back some years ago & am very familiar
with W8JI's station. All of the best ops in the country wanted to run
his station during the ARRL 160 cw contest. BIG signal & could work
stations most could not even hear.

My point is I am sure he "knows his stuff".

With that said....I have 2 hf antennas up right now. A wellbrook K9AY
& a wellbrook ALA 1530. The 1530 is mounted at 6ft off the ground
strapped to a wooden fence.

The K9AY always has a signal that shows more s-units. However many
times the 1530 will give a better s/n ratio.

It took me a while to "get over" the lower s meter reading & realize
I was hearing the signal better because of the better s/n ratio.

My location is in a housing project with several houses within 300 ft
of me so the loss in gain was not hurting me since my noise floor was
higher.

Now If I were located out in the wide open spaces with no man made
noise for miles then the 1530 would have no where near enough gain.

All of these are my opinions of course

And this is the experience of most people with loop antennas.

Things are a bit more complicated with electrically small loop antennas
because amplifiers come into use. Now you have to consider amplifier
design along with antenna design to predict performance.

Larger loops require less amplification so the amplifier performance
becomes less of an issue.

Full size loop antennas are a little different dimensionally and
depending on your house lot you might be able to fit a loop on your lot
where you can't fit a full size dipole. This difference in dimensions
may allow you get the full size loop farther away from a local noise
source.

--
Telamon
Ventura, California