My remote location is a little challenging what comes to the long-wire antennas, especially if the antenna needs to be string in straight line from the feed point. At the moment I have one long-wire antenna, a 43 meter long CityWindom hanging from the mast to a tree about 7 meters above the ground.
As I wanted to have at least another 40+ meter antenna installed I turned my attention to L-o-G antennas (Loop-on-Ground), a loop antenna installed directly to the ground with no suspension what so ever.
The construction:
For the antenna itself I used standard plastic insulated basic steel wire that is sold in every imaginable hardware store and normally used for example for fences, or hanging stuff. The wire did not have any special properties to be used as an antenna. I took care that the insulation was intact so that when the wire is lying on the ground under snow, water and grass water would not leak into the wire causing corrosion. Nothing else was done to insulate the wire from the elements of the nature.
I tried to have the wire on the ground as in pure loop configuration as possible. For that I calculated the center point of the loop, stick a pole into that location and used rope for guide grass-trimmer – then it was just walking around cutting a lane for the wire. A 40 meter loop is surprisingly big one, but I was able to fit it to the back yard with few meters of free space on every side.
The loop is located in small not used part at my yard but as there are lot’s of kids around I wanted to make sure that every one knows what the wire in the ground is – there is absolutely no risk of any electric shock, but the wire itself could cause harm if one run or stepped onto or if a kid tries to pull it out of the ground – better be safe than sorry as they say, so I marked the wire with some ‘attention tape’.
The feed point would be perfect if it is installed to the same level as the wire itself, but I wanted to be extra sure that there is no way water could get in to the feed point balun or coax cable, so I installed the feed point to be safe high from the ground – sometimes snow can get as high a 1 meter from the ground where my remote HAM shack is located. The coax runs from my shack elevated to some 1,6 meters above the ground, high enough to be protected from snow, water and some one stepping onto it but still clearly visible to be noticed by if some one is walking next to it – it also has this ‘attention tape’ for better visibility.
How does it perform?
I am more than surprised about how well the L-o-G performs when compared to the 40m long wire, ALA 1530, MLA30, MiniWhip and Half-G5RV. It indeed is very sensitive on 80m, 40m and even 20m but not really suitable to be used in 160m, VLF or 10+ meters. Well, as one would guess, this is a “40m band” antenna, so it is natural that this is not that good on other bands, especially in the lower part of the spectrum. The base noice level is awesome and several (ten’s!!) of dB’s below any other antenna I have in use.
Parts used:
Antenna: 40 meters of 3mm thick plastic insulated generic steel wire as an the actual antenna element
Feed line: 25 meters of Airborne 5 coaxial cable
Feed point: 4:1 balun made by fellow SWL DX’er PSO
Radio: SDRPlay’s RSPdx
Others: Red and white ‘attention tape’ for securing the wire and the feed coax