On Feb 19, 8:11*am, "Pete KE9OA" wrote:
It should be on the market soon..............as many of you have guessed,
Palstar is going to be putting it into production. I was hoping that I would
be able to cover longwave and medium wave with one loopstick, but it looks
like it will take two of them to cover the range.
I tested the longwave loopstick this morning, and it covers 85kHz to 500kHz
in one band. The Loran station on 100kHz was coming in at S9 +20dB. Now that
the prototype is completed, I will be doing a board layout that will use the
MW550P enclosure. This way, the same mounting hole pattern, switch
placement, etc, can be used. This thing has so much gain that it will be
necessary to have a switchable attenuator after the output amp. This
performance is with the 1/2 inch ferrite rod stock...........I can't wait
until the 5/8 inch stock comes in!
I was just talking to Paul this morning.............he tells me that there
are many people that would also like this thing to cover the shortwave
bands. It seems that when you get above 5 or 6MHz, the nulls aren't quite as
deep. I will investigate this further. I think if I can get longwave through
6MHz, that should be good for a start.

Pete

"J @ Hotmail" wrote in et...



Hurry, hurry, get it *on the market. *'Making room on my desk.
"Pete KE9OA" wrote in message
...
I just wired up the new unit with the wide range tuning capacitor. It
measures from 14pf to 1600pF. The tuning is a little bit skewed towards
the
low end, so I am going to wind a MW loopstick and see how low I can tune
with it. In my original prototype, I used a high Q tuning cap that had
ceramic standoffs for the stator plates. The new cap has a much higher Q,
as
evidenced by the 10dB increase in RF output. The final version may need a
Q
spoiling control. A vernier drive will definitely be required for tuning.
Still a bit of work to do............I think the enclosure for the RF
unit
will be fine, but the enclosure for the loopstick will need to be an
injection molded structure and will consist of a clamshell affair that
can
be screwed together. This will make it more manufacturable. I am using
PVC
pipe for the prototype units. Last night, I wound a loopstick for the 1..6
to
5.4MHz range. It was nice to be able to null out that interference on 60
Meters. Oh well..............time to go to sleep!

Pete

"RHF" wrote in message
....
On Feb 15, 6:48 am, "
wrote:
On Feb 15, 6:43?am, "Pete KE9OA" wrote:

I've got the first iteration prototype completed. Yesterday, I had a
chance
to compare this unit to a McKay Dymek
snip .
- - I can't reveal who the manufacturer of this unit is going to be,
- - but some of you have probably already guessed it.
- -
*- -Pete
-
- The word on the Palstar group at Yahoo is that Palstar
- is intending to launch a number of new products this year,
- including an active ferrite/loop antenna with interchangeable
heads,
- a transceiver and a receiver.
- The active antenna is likely to debut at Dayton in May.
-
- 73 John KC0G
-

Well if Pete [KE9OA] is Designing It -and- Palstar is Building It

it will be a gooder - imho ~ RHF
*.
CAUTION : This Post Has Not Been "Approved"
-by- Telamon. -http://tinyurl.com/yshplv
-ps- So Read It Only -If- You Are "Clueless".
-back-at-cha- Teli-Baby that is # 216 for the Month.
*.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Pete [KE9OA],

Some where I read ? saw ? a LW and MW Ferrite Rod Antenna
with both Coils on the same {single} Large {Long} Ferrite Rod.

IIRC - It had a Single Large Coil in the Center and a Pair {Two}
of Balanced Coils at each End of the one Ferrite Rod.

Believe the Ferrite Rod was around 12 Inches long.

MW Loop Source Book -compiled by- Steve Whitt
http://www.mwcircle.org/res-mwloop-book.htm

don't know if that helps any - it3c ~ RHF

I appreciate the link! I have tried the dual coil on one rod approach, and I
did get it to work fairly well. There is some interraction between the two
coils, so I decided to go with the one range per band approach. This also
eliminates the stray capacitance and inductance that can occur when
switching the coils. I even tried the tapped inductor approach, but that is
another can of worms. I ran into self resonance problems in the MW coil that
were caused by the LW coil.
As an example, the MW coil exhibited self resonance at 950kHz. When
grounding the LW coil, the self resonance changed frequency to 850kHz. If
this approach is used, the ferrite rod needs to have a variable density,
where it would have a very low permeability in its center, and have the
permeability increase at each end. It would be easier to use two loopsticks
mounted end to end, using a delrin coupling to that the two rods don't come
into physical contact with each other.
Using the separate loopstick approach, I noticed that placing two loopsticks
within 5 inches of each other would not only detune the desired loopstick,
but it would also cause distortion in the directional characteristics.
I notice that the German radio manufacturers have been using the dual coil
approach (LW and MW on the same rod) for years, but my experiments indicate
that this approach appears to be a compromise.
I am thinking about winding a loopstick that will cover from 2MHz to
approximately 11 or 12MHz today. I don't think there will be any directional
characteristics above 5 or 6MHz, because of the multipath effects that can
occur because of ionospheric scatter, but it is worth a try.
I should be doing the formal board layout for the final unit later this
week.

Pete

Pete [KE9OA],

Some where I read ? saw ? a LW and MW Ferrite Rod Antenna
with both Coils on the same {single} Large {Long} Ferrite Rod.

IIRC - It had a Single Large Coil in the Center and a Pair {Two}
of Balanced Coils at each End of the one Ferrite Rod.

Believe the Ferrite Rod was around 12 Inches long.

MW Loop Source Book -compiled by- Steve Whitt
http://www.mwcircle.org/res-mwloop-book.htm

don't know if that helps any - it3c ~ RHF