[time-nuts] 60kHz Loop antenna

[Chuck Harris]

Austron uses an 8 conductor piece of ribbon type antenna rotor cable.  They
connected all 8 strands together so the loop was a single turn.  They used
a pot core transformer to help match impedance.

When I made my general purpose loop, I made an octagon shaped loop out of
3/4 inch copper pipe, and 45 degree elbows.  I used a cast conduit box for
the terminations, and a plastic PVC coupler to break continuity at the top
of the loop.  For the winding, I took a single piece of 25 pair CAT3 cable
and soldered the wires to form a 50T loop.  I put a toroid balun in the box
to convert from 50 ohm unbalanced to 50 ohm balanced... I think?

It works pretty nicely as an antenna for my HP3586C.

-Chuck Harris

J. Forster wrote:
> When I designed mine maybe 20 years ago, I did consider using something
> like phone cable and ribbon cable, but there was a good performance reason
> for using the heavier wire. Sadly I can't recall why right now.