More on
K9AY
|
Basics
General
info on the K9AY loop
Performance
Listening test and other observations
Homemade
How to make your own K9AY
Grounding
The importance of good ground
Wires
How to place wires best
Remote
Remote control
of the KPAY |
|
 |
Two
K9AY loop system is super
By Al Merriman - K4GLU
July 4, 1998
The two loop system is up and running.
In a word, super!
There is no question that in many cases the front to back on the
loops is superior to a pair of slopers and I've not run into any
situation yet where it was worse.
During the day on some frequencies I'm able to choose between three
different stations just by switching antennas and adjusting the
termination.
As mentioned earlier to get full performance from these
antennas a variable termination is required.
The Steve Byan Vactrol method works a treat. This is very easy to
implement. All you need is the Vactrol installed in place of the
terminating resistor, a 1K pot in the control box to supply power
and an additional control line.
For my unit I'm using 5 conductor flat rotator cable. This is still
sold by Radio Shack.
I'm using the updated control box, with added 1K pot that was described
in the May 98 QST on page 73. This gives seperate lines for each
relay, variable termination and leaves another unused for possible
inclusion of a preamp later.
These antennas work very well as half of a 2 antenna phasing setup.
I've tried them against my slopers and an MFJ-1024 Active Whip with
a DL-2 Delay Line Phasing Unit and gotten excellent nulls.
More testing is going to be done including building a control/relay
box that uses separate feedlines for each loop to see if these loops
can't be phased against each other. Since they are mounted at 90
degrees to each other this should work. We will see.
That's about it.
For Medium Wave DXers this is an excellent project and I think I
can guarantee you will enjoy it very much when you have it up and
running.
SWL's - don't ignore the possibilities here. These antennas were
originally designed for use on the 160 and 80 meter Ham Bands. You
will have to make yours a bit smaller to cover the Tropical Bands.
My thanks go out to Gary Breed, K9AY for the original design
and to Steve Byan for the variable termination. It's very nice to
build a project and have it work as "advertised". |
|
|
antennX