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Welcome to W2BRI's Magnetic Loops

Images and Notes from Other Loop Builders, Inventors, and Enthusiasts

Adventures in Stealth Radio

Can a move to a new subdivision relegate you to becoming
a stamp collector?
By Art Heft

Background:
A recent move to a brand new subdivision prompted a rethink in the way I do my ham radio. At the
previous QTH (2 ½ acres), I had lots of wire strung around the property and a 50 foot tower sporting a 12
element 30 foot boom log-periodic. When I called, they usually answered. Upon moving to a beautiful new
home on a small lot, I decided to run only indoor antennas,
which for safety’s sake means running low power. Let me
describe what I have done.

The Old Standby:

The first antenna to be installed was an old Mosley MP-31
trap dipole for 10, 15 and 20 meters. This is an antenna
built from aluminum tube and looks like the driven element
out of a small tri-band yagi. I hung it near the peak of the
roof, just under the roof rafters. Since it follows the pitch of
the roof, it looks like the usual inverted vee. Fed with
RG-8X, and a 6 turn coax loop balun, it does a very good
job on the three bands. At the feedpoint, it is 25 feet high.
Nothing new here, just a run of the mill inverted vee. But
what I really wanted was an antenna I could use on 80 and
40 meters for my favorite kind of QSO…local ragchews.
I’m not a DX’er.

An Uncommon Antenna:
I have been avidly reading the occasional magazine article
describing small loop antennas. My all time favorite is an oldie from Ham Radio Magazine dated April
1989[1]. The article describes a loop made of copper water pipe, folded up into a box-like affair. The most
important detail these small loops have in common is this: ALL CONNECTIONS MUST BE SOLDERED
– NO CLAMPS AND NO SLIDING CONNECTIONS ALLOWED!! Failure to follow this rule will result
in failure. Why? These loops have extremely low radiation resistance and any small resistance (even a
fraction of an ohm) introduced by the conductor or its connections will drop efficiency quickly. Depending

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on the room available, and the radiating efficiency desired, pipe lengths of 20 feet and up are considered.
Since my available attic space was not all that large, I decided to go with a 40 footer. The result is an
antenna that fits into a 5 foot cube. As W5QJR states, ¾” pipe (actual outside diameter of 9/10”) is a good
compromise. At the local home center, four ¾” x 10 foot copper water pipes and ten 90 degree elbows set
me back $30. Look for the “red” rather than the “blue” type of pipe. The red has a slightly thinner wall
thickness, which is fine for our
application, and it’s a bit less
expensive. While visiting the
home center, pick up some
solder and flux. You can
probably build this antenna with
less than a foot of solder, so buy
the smallest roll they sell.
Perhaps a fresh tank of propane
for your torch would be in
order. You will also need to
consider some means of
cleaning the copper before
soldering. Sandpaper works
well, as do the wire brushes
sold for this application.
Assembly is pretty
straightforward. See Figure 1.
Before finishing the soldering of
the lower elements, be sure to
include the ferrite toroids used
at the feed point. We’ll talk more about these later, but now is the time to assemble them. If your
designated attic space is anything like mine, you will need to do the actual assembly in and around the truss
work. I suspended the antenna with a few pieces of judiciously placed twine. This is perfectly adequate
since the wind never blows and the antenna really doesn’t weigh much.

Connecting a Feed line:

To transfer power to and from this antenna, we need to connect it with 50 ohm coax. There are several
ways to feed a loop antenna, but the neatest and cleanest method I have found came from a QST Technical
Correspondence article [2]. See Figure 2. I bought my FT240-61 ferrite toroid cores from Ocean State
Electronics (www.oselectronics.com). They cost $8.75 each, plus shipping. Handle the cores with care.
They are quite fragile and break easily. Loop your coax through the cores next to the copper pipe. Solder
the center conductor of the coaxial loop to the braid to form a shielded loop. Use care and solder quickly so
as not to melt the inner
dielectric. What we have done
here is to create a transformer
with a one turn primary (the
coax) and a partial turn
secondary (the antenna itself).
Keep the toroids centered on
the copper pipe member. I hold
them in place with tape. This
feed method serves well at both
80 and 40 meters in my

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antenna. No adjustments are

needed. K6HPX’s article
shows a multiple bead balun to
keep RF off the outside of the
coax on the way back to the rig,
but I find a 6 turn, 12 inch
diameter winding of the coax
serves the same purpose.

Tuning the Antenna to Frequency:

Now that we have the antenna assembled and a feedline attached, we need to resonate it to the frequency of
interest. A capacitor across the two points “X” will accomplish this. With no added capacitance, my
antenna resonates at 11.6 MHz. For PSK power levels (15 watts output), a short length of RG-58 coax fills
the bill. On the low end of 80, I found I needed 63”, which at 30 pfd/ft [3] equates to 157 pfd. On the low
end of 40, I needed 11.5”, which represents 29 pfd. For 30 meters I needed 2.25” or about 5.6 pfd. RG-58
is rated at 1400 volts RMS vs. RG-8’s rating of 3700 volts RMS [4]. I found RG-8 would melt at
somewhat less than the 100 watt level. These ratings are for solid polyethylene dielectric material. Foam
dielectric coax has drastically reduced voltage ratings [5]. Of course, a fixed capacitor means a very narrow
range of frequencies over which our antenna will function satisfactorily. I found that on 40 meters the 2:1
SWR limits were +/- 60 KHz. On 80 they were much less, and on 30 meters you could cover the whole
band. For 80 and 40 meters, if we want to be able to QSY, we need a motor driven capacitor. There are
several articles that address this subject [6][7][8]. Care must be taken here with regard to the capacitor,
whether it is a fixed job or a motor driven variable. The voltages generated across this capacitor are very
large, even with modest power levels. Be careful! We wouldn’t want to burn the house down!

Remote Tuning:
Well, great! Now we have an antenna that works on 80 or 40 or 30 meters, but it sure is a pain going up
and down that ladder every time you wish to QSY. Lets see about some remote QSY capability, shall we?
Earlier, I mentioned a motor driven capacitor that would make this a practical multiband antenna. We have
a choice of three or four different types of capacitor. The first is the old standby with a set of stationary
plates and another set of rotary plates. Remember our warning of no sliding connections? That would tend
to rule out this type of
capacitor, because the rotating
set of plates is connected via a
sliding joint. There is a related
type of capacitor known as a
split-stator. It is basically two
capacitors on the same shaft.
The rotary plates are solidly
connected since they are on the
same shaft. We could use this in
our antenna by connecting the
two sets of stationary plates to
points “X”. Unfortunately, not
many junk-boxes have these
available and they aren’t cheap.
Another choice might be a
vacuum variable. These are the ultimate, but are even more expensive. Now we come to the realm of

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homebrew. First let’s consider the sliding concentric pipe capacitor. Building this type should be within the
capability of most hams. According to KD7S’s article [9], a capacitor large enough to resonate our loop on
the low end of 80 meters would require a capacitor 6 feet long when open. This is feasible but I’m short on
space. I do like his motor control limit switching circuit, however. It’s part of Figure 3. I found another
homebrew capacitor in the
ARRL Handbook article
showing a high power antenna
tuner [10]. It’s basically two
metal plates with a piece of
glass for the dielectric. We can
utilize this idea and, with only a
bit of imagination, end up with a
high voltage motor driven
variable capacitor with no
sliding connections. Try to
visualize a split stator capacitor
with linearly moving plates
rather than rotating plates. See
Figure 4.

The Capacitor:
I built my capacitor from pieces
of copper clad circuit board I found in my junk-box. For insulation, I used common “single strength” glass
obtained from the local glass shop. Single strength glass is 0.088” thick. Since the circuit board is 0.062”
thick, I utilized a few scraps of “vertical grade” kitchen cabinet laminate that was left over from a
remodeling job. At 0.025” thick, it’s just perfect to shim the circuit board so that it’s tight against the glass.
Doing this ensures maximum capacitance for the given area. Total cost for the glass was $9.45. Remember
to ask the glass shop to grind off the sharp edges. I used super glue to hold things together.
Solder connections from points “X” to the ends of the copper pipes. I used the shield from a piece of
RG-8/U
coax, but thin brass strips would also work. Don’t use a skinny piece of wire. Remember our rule of
avoiding high resistance connections?

The Motor:
Motive power for the moving plate comes from the ubiquitous electric screwdriver. Who among us doesn’t
have one whose batteries have died? You probably have discovered that new batteries cost about as much
as a whole new tool set. Removal of the dead battery and switch takes only a few minutes. I used a ¼-20
threaded rod and matching nut to turn rotary motion into linear motion. I picked a nylon threaded rod [11]
for three reasons: first, nylon is a great insulator; second, it’s quite flexible and is able to compensate for
any reasonable misalignments; third, it’s got natural lubricity – we won’t need to keep it oiled. The rod was
a sliding fit into the ¼” hex drive on the screwdriver. I drilled a 3/32” diameter hole through the drive and
the rod and then drove in a 3/32” diameter ½” long spring pin [12]. See Figure 5. Three small pieces of
circuit board soldered together
with a ¼-20 nut serve as a
mechanical connection between
the threaded rod and the
moveable plate of the
capacitor. See Figure 6. More

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scraps of 2 x 4 work as a holder

for the screwdriver motor. See
Figure 7.
The whole capacitor was
assembled on a scrap of ½”
plywood, with hold down
brackets made from a leftover
2x4. The two travel limiting
micro switches are likewise fastened to wooden brackets. See Photo #1. All this wood! Isn’t it great to be
able to combine two hobbies?

The Controller:
I utilized a Jones terminal strip for the interface between the micro switch and motor wiring and the cable
that goes back to the shack. The same home center store can supply “security wire”, which is a cable with
four #18 conductors with a foil shield for only 18 cents/foot. My screwdriver unit was a Black and Decker.
It was made to run on 3.6 volts and it drew about 1 amp at that voltage with no mechanical load. Our
homebrew capacitor will be a very light mechanical load. Now we need to build a device to regulate the
voltage from our 12 volt rig
power supply to a range of 1 to 5
volts. See figure 3. Don’t try to
run the screwdriver motor at 12
volts. The motor won’t live very
long and the capacitor will move
through its tuning range too
quickly. The idea here is to tune
the antenna as we watch the SWR
meter.

Results:
As it turns out, my capacitor
design has too large a minimum
value. At minimum capacitance,
the antenna resonates at about 8.7
MHz. So that leaves us out in the
cold for 30 meters. Perhaps
someday I will try to build a Mark II model and be sure I can reach 30 meter resonance. Additional spacing
between the two stationary plates would result in a lower minimum value of capacitance. At maximum
capacitance, the antenna resonates at about 3 MHz, so it covers all of 40, 75 and 80, and we’re ready for the
60 meter band, whenever we get it. Tuning is smooth and precise, especially with the controller set at a
slower speed. On the air reports are very satisfactory. I have noticed that signal reports drop during heavy
rain when the shingles are soaking wet. I suspect snow would have a similar effect, but since this is being
written in April, I can’t be sure. Remember, this is an antenna designed to permit operation where no visible
antennas are allowed. You may never be king of the frequency, but you will be on the air, making QSO’s.
The SWR on 80 meters is 1.7:1. On 40 meters it is 1:1. All SWR and capacitance values were observed on
an Autek Research RF Analyst
model RF-1. My total cash outlay
for copper pipe and elbows,

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toroids, glass, control cable and

the threaded rod was $82.69. I
found the circuit board, micro
switches, coax feed line, and
wood scraps in the junk-box.

Things I would do differently next

time:
As stated above, a too large
minimum value of capacitance
precludes use on 30 meters. I
should have gone with a larger
spacing between the two
non-moving capacitor plates.
This would result in a lower
minimum capacitance and allow
us to use the antenna on 30
meters.
Be sure to test the capacitor – motor – micro switch assembly on the bench before installation in the attic. If
the motor continues to run after contacting the micro switches, then reverse the two wires going to the
motor. It’s no fun trying to solder small wires in the attic environment.

Acknowledgments:
Thanks to all the hams that encouraged me, asked questions
and gave signal reports during QSO’s.
Thanks to son Brian, KB8RTV, for the donation of his old
electric screwdriver.
A special thanks to my dear XYL Karen, KB8CZL, who
made sure I got the manuscript right.

73, and see you on 80 and 40 meters.

Art Heft K8CIT

12438 Peabody Drive
Fenton MI 48430-8444
[email protected]

Notes:
[1] Ted Hart, W5QJR, “The Convoluted Loop”, Ham Radio, April 1989, pp 89-95.
[2] Ken Hirschberg, K6HPX, “Toroid Coupling Feeds Compact Transmitting Loop”, QST, March 1995, pp 72-73.
[3] ARRL Antenna Handbook, 18th edition, p 24-17.
[4] See note 3.
[5] See note 3.
[6] Gene Gardner, W9RWZ, “High-Q Vertical Loop”, WorldRadio, June 1993, pp 61-63, 75.
[7] Robert Capon, WA3ULH, “You Can Build: A Compact Loop Antenna for 30 through 12 Meters”, QST, May 1994, pp
33-36.
[8] Bill Jones, KD7S, “A Home-Brew Loop Tuning Capacitor”, QST, November 1994, pp 30-32.
[9] See note 8.
[10] ARRL Handbook, 76th edition, pp 22.59-22.62.
[11] McMaster-Carr Supply Co. (www.mcmaster.com) part # 98831A028. $2.82 plus shipping.
[12] Available from any well stocked hardware store or auto supply for a few cents.

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Captions:
Photo 1 - Capacitor assembly

Figures:
1. Antenna assembly
2. Feed point
3. Voltage regulator, motor and micro switch wiring
4. Capacitor assembly
5. Screwdriver modification
6. Connection from threaded rod to moveable capacitor plate
7. Screwdriver attaching clamp

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