GREEN VALLEY AMATEUR RADIO CLUB
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On the Ground Loop Antenna
N9MW

KK5JY has done a nice job designing, building and documenting a receive loop antenna that lies on the ground. It is 15 feet on a side and is interfaced with a 9:1 balun to a coax feed to the station. You can see his work at http://www.kk5jy.net/LoG/.

Bruce K3BAT suffers from local noise so he built the antenna and reported good results. I live in a suburban area with normally S7 or better noise on my home brew 37 foot vertical matched with a remote tuner at the base. I built a version to try for myself.

My construction used a full 100 foot roll of number 14 stranded insulated electrical wire purchased at a local home store. The result is an obvious 25 feet per side square. The match is a 1 inch #31 toroid with two turns of number 18 in the primary and 7 turns in the balance output side. It is housed in a 4 inch weather tight electrical box.

Picture
Below is an Aim4170 scan of the antenna from 1 to 31mHz. The wavy red line is SWR and naturally seems to be an SWR of less that 5:1 from 80 meters up in frequency. In my location the antenna is laying on a dry gravel base. I would expect big differences from either moisture, soil type or if the wire settled into the ground.
Picture
I was delighted when I first connected the unit to see strong signals while the noise level was now
showing S-2 or less. It is apparent the unit is not a dummy load. However, the following day while listening to the 40 and 20 meter nets I frequent daily I found closer signals were very good, but longer path signals that normally are very strong were seriously degraded. The antenna obviously favors high elevation angle signals as we might expect. I did not shorten the leg lengths to 15 feet as testing at both 20 and 40 meters should accomplish the same sort of results.


I am not degrading the antenna, only reporting my results compared to my homebrew vertical. The antenna would make a great receive antenna in limited spaces or if low visibility is required. It is an inexpensive afternoon project that might compliment your antenna farm.
  • Home
    • Repeater Info
    • OUR Web SDR
  • Projects
    • 13.8 Volt Load
    • Antenna Ideas
    • Antenna Construction Ideas
    • Dummy Load
    • Past Projects >
      • Organization
      • RFI Mitigation >
        • Direction Finders
      • 2 Meter Gallery
      • Vertical Flagpole
      • Magnetic Loop
      • Wire Antennas
      • SDR Dongles
      • On the Ground Loop Antenna
  • Activities
    • Calendar
    • NETS >
      • Sunday - Two Meter Net
      • Tuesday - Oatmeal Net
      • Thursday- N7GV Simplex Net
      • Wednesday - Snow Bird Net
      • Inactive Nets >
        • Monday - DMR Net
    • Contests >
      • Winter Field Day
      • 7qp
      • Field Day
      • Arizona QSO Party
    • Social Time Out >
      • Wednesday - Breakfast
      • Thursday Evening Dinner
    • Picnics
    • Special Events
    • Titan Missile Museum
    • Driveouts
    • Road Cleanup
    • Parks on the Air
    • HamFest 2025
  • About
    • 2025 Board Members
    • 2025 Committees
    • Meeting Minutes
    • For New Members
    • Get Help
    • Ham Radio Sites
    • Classes & VE Testing
    • CW Interest
    • Ready, Set, Go Info >
      • Ready, Set, Go
      • Your Go Kit
      • My Alerts
    • Donations of Radio Equipment
    • History
    • Gallery
    • GVARC Certificates
    • EchoLink
    • BaoFeng HTs
    • Contact Us
    • We belong to ARCA
    • Miscellaneous >
      • Emergency Plan
      • Links
      • Technical Blog
  • Members
    • Ham Gear for GVARC Members
    • Current Roster
    • GVARC Logo Items
    • Inventory
    • Members We Honor
    • Name Badge Request
    • DMR Info
    • Win System
    • Member Profiles