On Jan 1, 8:26 pm, wrote:
On Jan 1, 9:16 am, wrote:



I must be doing something right because we had another power outage
last night,
or early this morning from 1:00AM until 3:00AM.

I had restrung a 50' random wire antenna from the WR LWA-0130 Long
Wire Antenna Adapter mounted under the eves to a fiber glass pole tied
to a fence post.

I compared three antennas, a Lankford "Simplified Complimentary
Antenna',
the same antenna with a built in Lankford "Norton RF amp" and the
LWZ-0130.

After a few tests I dropped the active with the built in Norton RF
amp. Simply put,
there is still too much background noise to make the amp useful.

I A/B tested the other 2 from CB, 27.035 had a nice distance
conversation, down to 100KHz Loran C. As expected the Lankford
"Simplified Complimentary Antenna' was the winner. At every frequency
the signals were cleaner on the Lankford antenna, though in many cases
the difference was just noticeable.

At 3:03AM when the AC came back on, the LWA-0130 and 50' random wire
antenna became nearly useless. The QRM jumped up to at least S3 up to
15MHz on the LWA-0130. The noise increased on the Lankford active
antenna rose as well, but never reached S1.

As I thought, if one lives in a remote RFquite area the typical random
wire
antenna is clearly a worthwhile antenna. In built up and noisy areas
it's
utility decrease.

I admit that I need to mount the LWA-0130 at least 50' from our home,
but
that isn't practical right now.

Terry

Loop antennas are better at rejecting man made noise. I think I've
plugged Wellbrook too much already on the group, but their products
are the way to go for urban environments. But even in the boonies, my
ala100 and homemade loop worked better than about 80ft of wire and the
palomar magnetic balun.

The advantage to the loop is you can rotate it to null the noise
source if the frequency is relatively low. Certainly for MW and
lower.

I owned a Wellbrok ALA1530 for several weeks and found it to be
inferior to a
active dipole in terms of beam width and ability to operate within a
strong MW
environment. I live within 3 miles of 2 MW stations that give any
device with
active components a work out. I found the WL1030 to be at least the
equal of,
and frequently better then the ALA1530. Both were inferior to the
active dipole.

I wanted to test my hypothesis that in very quiet, low RF noise,
locations, the
type of antenna was not of extreme importance. I think I have verified
that the
worst your environment, the more balanced and antenna must be.
Balance,
in general, reflects the ability to be easily isolated from the RF
common mode
noise generated in almost every modern home.

No noise means 'anything' goes. Within reason.

If you are a fan of loops I urge you to check the WL1030 web page.
PCBs are no
longer available, but even with SMC it can be built with minimum
trouble. The only
disagreement I have with the guys at the WL1030 site is their
insistence up the
need for a hard to get Litz wire for the loop. It might make a
difference at LF but
I really couldn't tell the difference between Litz, solid or stranded
copper wire.

To steer the beam I use a 'phaser'. I can get slightly better results
with a horizontal
active dipole, but that requires a rotator. With a phaser all I need
to do is to turn a
switch then a pot. Life is GOOD.

We have been told they will have to kill the power for up to an hour
at 5:00PM. Getting
kind of chilly around here....But I am testing my theory by running an
antenna straight
a 20' fiber glass rod/pole through the window to the receiver. No
external matching
transformer and no coax in the system. I suspect it will work very
well as long as the
power is off. I will report the results either this evening or Monday.

If the power is off very long and the temps drop as fast as I expect I
may have to fire up
a genset and then all DXing is over.

Terry