On 03 May 2007 20:43:19 GMT, Spam Collector
wrote:

While reading about antennas, I've been unable to find
answers to what I thought would be basic questions.
Most of what I've read seems to concentrate on narrow-
bandwith antennas, and even at that seems to concentrate
on what happens when lengths become shorter and ignores
the effects of longer lengths (for definitions of 'longer'
meaning 'much longer, as in many wavelengths longer).
The question is how various low-band antenna types
will perform at higher bands. For example, if I were
to run a wire around my property (about 300 x 500 feet),
giving me about 1600' of antenna length, I could run it
as a folded random wire (fed from one end), a loop (fed
from a corner or the middle of one side), or as a dipole
(if fed like the loop but cut on the oposite side).
What are the performance differences between the
three configurations, and is there a upper frequency
limit for practical use of them? For example, would it
work on say 2m or 70cm, where the antenna would be
hundreds of wavelengths long?

I use a ~550 foot horizontal loop fed with 450 ohm window line. A
balanced double L tuner is used as a matching device on HF. Homebrew
balanced tuners permit the loop to be used on 6 and 2M. On 6M the loop
performs well for an omnidirectional antenna. My primary 6M antennas
are Sterba curtains. The loop works FB on 2M FM but it is not suitable
for weak signal work.

73 de n4jvp
Fritz