Hi John,
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I don't own one, but looking at the information on eBay, it seems to be a pretty generic design, and will probably offer typical mediocre performance.
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Don't be fooled by what you hear when receiving signals on a small loop, it doesn't make it a good efficient transmit antenna, which is a significant consideration, especially if you are running low power.
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There is far too much hype and sales speak, and unless you make it yourself for a fraction of the cost of a commercial design, my general rule of thumb with small lightweight tuned magnetic loops is - don't bother !
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For operation on 10m through to 20m - use a simple dipole instead.?? Not much more space required and the performance will be better.
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30m, 40m & 60m - a loop will be more compact, but it's starting to become a bit small in terms of wavelength, and an end fed wire, or base loaded whip or ham stick will work better.
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80m & 160m - a small loop, is far too inefficient, if you don't have space for a dipole, end fed wire or vertical, then a base loaded whip or ham stick will work better than a small loop. A larger, well-built loop can work well if engineered properly, but it's a lot of effort, and only worthwhile if the performance is likely to be better than any other antenna that may be constrained by the space available.
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Personally, if I wanted a compact multi-band portable antenna, I'd use a link connected wire dipole, or a decent "screwdriver" type of base loaded whip.
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Regards,
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Martin
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On Thu, Sep 12, 2024 at 01:38 PM, John Dusek wrote:
Does anyone here use the W2LI magnetic loop from TriCountyRadio.org???
John Dusek