The Mega-Loop: Exploring the Fascinating World of Large Triangle Loop Antennas

Comments · 152

• MO

  @monawarrajayki5445 · 2 years ago

  I just wanted to thank you sir. With the inspiration from this video I decided to build a 10 meter delta loop. I am only a technician so 28.3 to 28.5 is all the access I have to HF. On Christmas eve at 10am I made my first HF contact from the state of Georgia in the US to KD70BAD in Germany (4651 miles). Thank you for everything you do us. <br>Moe KO4GBB

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• GW

  @gwlong · 4 years ago

  My first antenna was a 40 meter delta loop at ~45 feet using a balanced line and an external tuner. I was able to work 100 countries on just 10 meters. It also did well on 20 meters but started getting a tad NVIS on 40 meters. If I presently had the facility I&apos;d have another one. I also used old window weights attached to a separate paracord running across a nautical pulley to act as a stress relief in windy weather.

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• HA

  @harrymagooslum5770 · 4 years ago

  Callum, some years ago this Brit chap was on YouTube talking about the Meg-O-Loop (yes, &quot;OH&quot;; that&apos;s what it sounded like coming from his / your lips). &nbsp;Anyway... sporting a mohawk haircut, I believe, it was of great interest to me as I have 100 ft tall doug fir trees surrounding my house. &nbsp;So I constructed an air cannon and shot lines over the very highest branches. &nbsp;All evidence says that this was the Spring of 2013. &nbsp;Made with stranded and insulated #12 electrical house wire, one leg at the North end is about 60 feet long with the other two just over 100 feet, forming an 80m loop fed at the South apex just above my home office/shack. &nbsp;I found a VGE HiQ 4:1 balun, stashed away &nbsp;from my youth (1980&apos;s vintage), and about 100 ft of LMR-400 coax to feed it with as the elevation of said loop is about 90 feet above the ground (!bonus!). &nbsp;And I live literally a stones through above the salt waters of Puget Sound (25 feet above sea level?) so that can&apos;t hurt, eh.<br>This was a &quot;temporary&quot; antenna... only it turned out to be permanent and it&apos;s still really my only permanent antenna installation at home still. &nbsp;A couple years ago I paid an arborist &nbsp;to install stainless pulleys in the trees and free up the lines that had cut in to the limbs causing the tree to heal over them. &nbsp;Periodically I get tempted to put up a hex beam on the 32 ft tower that sits in pieces behind my garage but usually think &quot;WHY&quot;?? &nbsp;The Meg-O-Loop is working gangbustahs.<br>Performance is spectacular. &nbsp;If I can hear them then I can work them, and it hears a LOT. &nbsp;It&apos;s quiet on receive and I can have as many Chinese wall wart switching power supplies in the house, below, with no detection of noise at all from them. &nbsp;Not true though when I did what others kept telling me and got rid of the balun and coax for balanced line and a tuner instead. &nbsp;I believe that the vertical section of balanced feed picks up stuff from inside the house and I have to turn off certain lights and such in that case. &nbsp;I wound a new balun on a pair of FT240-43 cores which will be an upgrade from the aged balun that has been of service for so long.<br>I work DX on 20m, 17m, 15m, 10m and the 40m nets and stations in the Western part of the USA with ease running 100W. &nbsp;The only &quot;wish&quot; &nbsp;is that on the full wave resonant 80m band the impedance wasn&apos;t asking for a 2:1 transformation. &nbsp; I end up using the rig&apos;s tuner which is of course tuning up the coax. &nbsp;It works but I&apos;m sure it&apos;s inefficient and who knows what the radiation pattern is as well as radiation in the shack. &nbsp;My hope is to add a relay to the new balun that can tap it such that when energized it will be a 2:1 transformer. &nbsp;Perhaps using a d.c. blocking capacitor so I can energize it by pushing d.c. up the coax when I am on 80m.<br>The loop has been tried by me on 6m here but only briefly one day to satisfy curiosity. &nbsp;I wonder if your thoughts on 2m and 70cm might neglect to consider the core material suitability up at those higher frequencies? &nbsp;It would be interesting to make a balun just for up there that could be switched in to see, perhaps during a VHF DX contest?<br>Long story, I&apos;d like to thank you for reading my mind and revisiting this antenna. &nbsp;The other day I went looking for the original video that you had posted and I had shared with fellow hams over the years but I could not find it. &nbsp;So I was thinking hard about contacting you to learn what happened to the mohawk / Meg-O-Loop video (archived or ???). &nbsp;We all know about the success of your YouTube channel as we enjoy the content so please keep it up (yes, &quot;Subscribed&quot;, long ago)!<br>Wishing you all the best. &nbsp;Cheers.

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• JA

  @jasonjames6076 · 2 years ago

  I love the honesty of the maker of a famous &amp; efficient vertical antenna putting up his ideas of an efficient horizontal antenna that you can build yourself… I’ll be buying a dx commander for comparison😂 btw my wave resonated on 7mhz at 1.3 swr

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• PS

  @psychodad11 · 4 years ago

  I have an 80m full wave skyloop (roughly 275ft long) fed direct with rg6 75 ohm cable (yes, 75 ohm), no balun, set up in an uneven triangle. One corner is roughly 60ft up, one corner 35, one corner 25. It is a pileup buster. I don&apos;t have an amp, just 100w barefoot and I don&apos;t run an external tuner, my ft450 tunes it fine with very few exceptions. I absolutely love this antenna. I hope to raise the lower corners soon and expand it for 160m. Btw, keep the videos coming, learning a lot from them. Hope to hear u on the band&apos;s, stay safe! 73. N2SCD

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• GR

  @GreyGhost-r4z · 4 years ago (edited)

  When I lived in Upstate NY (Clifton Park) I had a fullwave loop for 160. &nbsp;It was a flat top for 160, up about 70 feet. &nbsp;I fed it with 450 ohm ladderline. &nbsp; I used it for many years until we had a Hurricane come up the coast and thrashed it. &nbsp;I loved it. &nbsp;I could run any band and hear everything. &nbsp;By the time DX called i had already pounced on them before everybody could swing their beams. &nbsp;It waa so sensitive and quiet you could hear a mouse fart in Mongolia.<br><br>Im on a small city lot now and run a vertical. &nbsp; I can pretty much hit anywhere except India. &nbsp; Its driving me crazy. &nbsp;Thinking about a half-square. &nbsp;Wondering if I can get 40/30/20 from it

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• WA

  @waynepallister1511 · 4 years ago

  Hi Calum, I have used this 160m mega loop for 24 yrs with open wire feeder, only way to go. Wayne VK2DWP Wagga Wagga

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• JR

  @JReed305 · 4 years ago

  Love to see a 160m square loop. One of these days I will live somewhere with big trees and would love to put one up.

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• AB

  @abrahamnorthhampton3327 · 4 years ago

  I am so jealous of all the wide open space you have to experiment! <br><br>Many thanks for another interesting and informative video, &nbsp;Cal!<br><br>73 from America (but not the wide-open part)

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• KE

  @kevinkc3onohelijeepworld · 4 years ago

  Love to see the comparison between coax feeding and balance feeding these loop does for power ? Great vid Cal we always preached about full wave loops and doublets on our freq esp when we can pass on the knowledge, it’s kinda needed when on low band. compromised antenna on low band in summer static can be very hard on the ears ☺️

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• TI

  @timkeene2717 · 4 years ago

  Thanks again Calum.....Excellent info. I need to get off my butt and get building mine. 👍

• BE

  @BenTrem42 · 1 year ago

  Great stuff, gain on transmit 🙂