With receive antennas, Signal To Noise is the important factor, and not absolute signal strength.
?
However, it's very easy to be fooled into thinking that a weaker signal has a subjectively better Signal to Noise Ratio than a stronger signal, because the background noise drops below our hearing "threshold", or may be masked by "smoother" sounding internal noise from the receiver itself.
?
It's a psychoacoustic phenomenon, which can be emulated by increasing attenuation ahead of a receiver.
?
In an urban environment, it's most likely that the local noise floor will be the limiting factor, and you won't notice any difference between a narrowband passive tuned loop, or a similar sized broadband active loop. It's only when you get out into the countryside, with a very low noise floor, that you may observe some differences, but even then a decent broadband active loop will most likely be adequate.
?
Regards,
?
Martin
?
?
On Sat, Jan 25, 2025 at 06:58 PM, Bob, N1KPR wrote:
My point is that the tuned loop is about 18dB below the 160 wire and about 22-24dB below the vertical 80, but with significantly less noise
