G4KKI Bill

Hi, I am a United Kingdom radio amateur aged 55. My main interest is in cw operating. Which I have been doing now for 40 years. Aged 15 I joined the army as a boy entrant, I served in the Royal Corps of Signals. Serving first at Denbury in South Devon at the Junior Leaders Regiment, I was there for 2 years after which I was posted out to Germany to Dortmund and later Hildersheim. I also saw service in Cyprus, Malta, Singapore/Malaya, Sharjah in the Persian Gulf and back to the UK.

I was a radio op, and have enjoyed using cw ever since those early days. I got my amateur radio license in 1980 and operated with homemade qrp gear. These days I use my old but trusty Trio TS530S. As I have very little room for outside antennas I now use a couple of home made magnetic loops which are situated in my roof space. With these I can operate on 80 - 10 mtrs, soon I'll be on 160m also when I fix a 1500pf transmitting variable to my 80/40m magnetic loop. Here are a couple of pictures of me and my 6'6" 80/40mtr loop and my 3' hf magnetic loop which covers 20-10mtrs.

I have completed a small pulsed psu using just one 555 ic, haven't tested it yet on my magnetic loop but it has been tested on a 4 inch 12v fan and I can slow the fan down to just a few revs per min, down from several thousand a minute. Will post details and a circuit dia when tested on the loop.

The large 6'6" magnetic loop on the left was in it's building stages at the club where I put it together, the capacitor fitted allows operation on 80/40 with about 30 watts output. This is only a receiver type capacitor and I am waiting delivery of a 1500pf transmitting variable capacitor to replace it. This will then give me coverage of 160/80/40/30 mtrs and capability to run 100 watts plus. The magnetic loop on the right is my 20 - 10 mtrs loop and this has a wide spaced variable capacitor and will run in excess of 150 watts, but as my ts530s is 125 watts max all is well. The variable capacitor is covered by a large plastic lunch box to keep the dust and dirt off it that gets through the slate roof.

The 1500pf variable capacitor has arrived and the magnetic loop is now working on 160/80/40/ mtrs, just got to finish it off by adding a new drive motor and am playing with a pulsed power supply for it using a couple of 555 ic's. Will post details when completed.

The power I can now operate is 65 to 70 watts, so to get 100watts I still need a wider spaced capacitor, anyone got one ? please email me if you have mailto:g4kki.bill@ntlworld.com also feel free to email with pictures of your own magnetic loop and maybe some building information to share with others.

The 160-40mtr magnetic loop has exceeded my expectations of it, all of the UK has been worked and out into Europe. The most unexpected QSO of late was on 19/September/2003 when I worked W1MK Rob in Boxford Mass on 80mtrs. I was running 70 watts with my TS530S on 3.508mhz. Rob was 599 and gave me a 559, I admit his antenna which he described as a 4 ele beam on 80mtrs did the work but when I said that a lot of Eu's were not audible because of the high noise level I think the magnetic loop proved just how well it works.

Links to other magnetic loop sites

W2BRI's Magnetic Loop Site

PA3CQR Magnetic loop antenna page

THE NEW MAGNETIC LOOP ANTENNA


The finished magnetic loop with it's 1500pf variable capacitor in place the motor mounted underneath.	The gamma match