Magnetic Loop Antenna Icom AL-705 In Action
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- Опубликовано: 23 ноя 2020
- The Icom AL-705 Antenna is made for ICOM by Alpha Antennas in the USA. We take a look at the design and test it out.
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This was very informative! I've always loved listening to shortwave and ham in general but yet to get my license, though I would like to get one soon. This pairing of radio and antenna would be perfect for me, and as you said, the thrill of making even one QSO with a low power radio indoors is much more satisfying than doing so with a huge antenna and lots of power for me anyways.
Back in the early 2000's I had a small handheld radio on LSB in the CB band and would try for hours just to make a few contacts with that small setup...it gave me every bit as much joy as making long distance contacts around the world on my bigger radio and antenna. Whenever I can save up enough money I want to get this setup you have, get my license and work some QRP.
:)
That’s the best I’ve ever heard it explained! Thank you!
The mag loop is just the thing for me. It fits perfectly into my concept of a fast, light, compact and efficient kit, that can be deployed almost anywhere, with stealth.
Thanks for viewing. 73 Peter
efficient? lol, not really.
Well done! Thank you for the excellent walk through.
Glad it was helpful!
Thank you for this review and the very clear information about the magnetic loop antennas. This made me decide to buy this antenna as it serves my circumstances really well, meaning limited space, operating QRP indoors, hiking and camping, and so on and so forth.
Glad I could help!
Great video again! I am doing QRP all the time and your fishing comparison was just great :-) I'll keep that in mind :-) 73, Stephan, DF6PA
Many thanks. 73 Peter
Love the video! I like the fishing illustration as well. When you get to struggle and develop skill, enjoyment goes up!
Glad you enjoyed it!
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Great fun, nice review again.
Very interesting. What a great idea for an emergency antenna. I live on the gulf coast and you never know when a tropical storm, or hurricane is going to wipe away all your external antennas.
Glad it was helpful!
Great video. I was your 1000th like KFOIMD 73.
As usual, great info and a great presentation........
Thanks again!
Thank you, very informative video.
I enjoyed your video (one of many) and i have tried a mag loop, an mfj-1899t portable hf antenna and an mfj QRP loop tuner. All indoors and i get the same results. Zero contacts.
I am in a seniors apartment complex on the ground floor. There must be a lot of metal in the concrete. Two elements which would block a signal.
Once the weather warms up, i will be outside trying something new.
The new lease says, "no antennas" and i have to stay within the confines of my balcony.
Thank you for the encouraging words, enjoy your day.
73 Lewis VE3QJ
Hi Lewis. Good ro hear from you. I hope you can come up with a plan. Might be worth trying 10m operation from the balcony. That band will begin to come to life and even low power and simple antennas can work. Take care. 73 Peter.
Great video. I have a 25 year old 2 watt Qrp radio I built and with that and a 40 meter vertical I worked 15 stations last night with the CQ DX Worldwide CW contest. It was fun. 2 watts was a challenge ! But thrilling. It’s amazing how many QRO stations can hear you when they need contest points 😉 de KB2QQM
Thanks for sharing
Most helpful and useful 73 de Karl KE3KWE in Arizona USA thank you very much for producing and posting
Glad it was helpful! 73 Peter
Good fishing analogy, wish a lot of the tech talk could be made as easy to us non p h d boffs, thankyou , all the best RS London boy.
Amazing results for such a small antenna and another great presentation. Thank you very much. 👍 73s DJ0NC.
Glad you enjoyed it 73 Peter
Magnetic antennas are an interesting and good solution. I have been using them for several years. You have to remember about their direction. An interesting solution for testing can be the antenna tuner MFJ-936B
Yes indeed. I worked VK on SSB from indoors. 73 Peter
It's clearly a good product and thanks for an interesting & informative video. I'm tempted with my 703. One improvement perhaps would be a remote actuator and perhaps provide a rig interface with a firmware update to control it. I'm sure the 705 has more than enough spare processor cycles to control mag loop tuning. Yes QRP is the best fun! 73
Thanks for sharing. 73 Peter
Excellent informative video Peter... nice comment that they are efficient. Contrary to many reports.. thats what you get when most use the same algorithm to work out efficiency... 😏
Many thanks. 73 Peter
If I ever make it back to the land of crumble & lemon curd, I'll look forward to visiting.
Great video man. Thanks.
Many thanks. Nice to hear from you.
Fantastic presentation and construction ideas!
Q; Peter what is the diam. of the coupling loop?
Informative video however I am curious about the connection to the primary (small) loop. It appears to be a standard SO-239 type tee connector. Most of the designs that I have seen for the primary loop have the feedline from the radio connecting to one side of the primary loop and the opposite end of the primary loop is connected to the shield of this same feedline. With a tee connector this would not happen. Perhaps this is not a standard tee connector?
Excellent presentation. I don't quite have my General yet, however this is the basic setup I was considering. Perhaps with a larger loop. I live in one of the "HAM restrictive" environments you spoke of. Indoors you were operating 10 watts, correct? Great video, thanks.
Good video. Thanks
Glad you liked it!
Might be something to look in to. Been thinking about a loop for a Xiegu G90
Thanks Glen. 73 Peter
Thank you Peter
You are welcome. 73 Peter
Bluetooth headphones would allow the dial to be adjusted while listening to the receive frequency. Thanks for a nice tutorial.
Many thanks. 73 Peter
May i ask you that where we buy loop antenna with diametre 60cm as you
shown us because icom AL-705 is diameter 67.5cm bit different isn't it
May ihave your answer Please ?
How many centimeter is the diameter of little loop?
I have two IC-705’s waiting for me in Texas. I have some pre-ordered in Thailand waiting for them to be approved by the NBTC here. Hopefully approval by Christmas. I also have the Icom backpack for the 705. I’ll mount a 3/4” PVC pipe to the side of the backpack and mount my Alexloop to that. Then I’ll just reach up and tune loop for max volume and walk around operating.surprised no one has made a video of that yet.
W5MMT / HS0ZAC
Thanks for comments. 73 Peter.
Where did you purchase this antenna????
The design seems to have a number of compromises, especially considering it’s marketed for a field radio. Rather it seems to be minimalist desktop implementation. Linking this to the IC705 is nothing more than a marketing ploy. I’ve seen a number of different mag loops with better implementations. I highly suggest looking at others on the market before making any purchasing decisions. Some features to look for include a reducer on the tuning capacitor for easier fine tuning and a standard tripod mount.
Nice video, lovely to hear myself twice hi, 00:19 and 18:38 John de ON8EI , thanks to Mark EI3IBB for the heads up. Thanks Peter. 73's
Our pleasure!
@@watersstanton Tnx Peter.
With most magnetic loop antennas, you WANT the coupling loop to hug up against the main (outer) loop. The Outer loop is just too small given the size of the coupling loop. The coupling loop should be 20% the size of the outer loop. So in this case, the outer loop should be at least twice the size that you show. I make my own and own a few commercial magnetic loops and NONE are the dimensions of the loop in your video. The Couplin Loop needs to be 1/5 the size of the Outer Loop. 73 de N2LRB
Thanks for sharing your views. 73 Peter
Excellent video. Thanks for sharing. I got to see a loop and the IC 705 in action. 73 de AF4OD. Bill. PS, if I ever get a chance to visit the UK I would like to visit your store .
Many thanks Bill. 73 Peter
amazing
Thank you! Cheers! Peter
Great video. How much power can you put through a magnetic loop? I use my 7300 for portable work in an RV and it would be nice to find a loop that could handle a little more than 20 or 30 watts.
I think 20W Max. 73 Peter
Check these out, probably the best out there but they cost www.ciromazzoni.com/loop-midi
They also have the baby loop. But ideal for your RV can even use an amp.
Tnx .. Great
Thank you too!
Thank you for a very informative review Peter. Does ASL come into the equation with a mag-loop antenna, I have 24m asl? 73, G0IIK
No it has no effect. 73 Peter
This loop antenna is only for the HF band or maybe for other bands like VHF and UHF?
Sorry my bad english i m learning..
Hi there. many thanks for your message. Yes just for HF bands. 73 Peter
Thank you for the information Peter! By any chance, have you tested suspending the small loop with a strip of velcro to allow for a greater distance from the larger outer loop. If yes, what was the effect on the SWR? Thank you, N1PB
Yes I did and it had same effect. The reason I opted for changind shape was to preserve the rigidity. 73 Peter.
Would this antenna work with a Tecsun 660 on shortwave bands?
Sorry no. It is dedicated for Icom transceiver.
They are strange working aerials the loops, it is amazing what you can do with them with not a lot of power either. This one looks sort of interesting and portable as well.
Thanks for viewing Bob. 73 Peter
How much bandwidth do you get when you tune the antenna? Or in other words, how broad is Q? thx.
Around 20kHz on 20m. Less on LF and more HF.
@@watersstanton I'm having a hard time with this antenna. It has a mind of its own. I'm indoors at the moment, but it will tune and then minutes later it just not tuned anymore. I'm also doing your idea on using a switch, like the idea. Funny thing is that when I use the SWR that is built into the IC705 it tells me the SWR is high on its graph. Have you experienced that before?
thx
Interesting, enjoyable and informative video as ever Peter. 73s de G0LCX
Many thanks!
The twisty thing you use has a steel wire core. Try a plastic zip tie instead to prevent problems. Then perhaps try to form the small loop into a D shape with the flat part facing up for much better coupling and a much more efficient antenna. SWR should be better, not worse doing that. I suspect your twisty thing.
It needed less coupling. The VSWR was then fine. 73 Peter
I have their earlier model, but basically same setup. For a small antenna, it works FB and tuning is very sharp. I can set mind up in less than 5 minutes and be on the air with the KX3 and internal batteries. I also like the fact there's almost no foot print and unlike a vertical (which I also use portable) no counterpoise needed. And, since it is directional off the ends I either swivel the antenna on the tripod or pick it up and move it.....try that with your dipole strung in the trees.
The "dipole in the trees" would be so busy with 100's more contacts that you wouldn't need to move it.
Hi Eddy. Thanks for that. 73 Peter
@@forgetyourlife You're correct, unless you live in Ireland where there's more trees in Half of Snowdonia park in Wales than the entire Island of Ireland lol.
Seriously though, trees are a pain in the ass trying to get wire antennas up but an 49:1 EFHW and spiderbeam works well, so too does my Chameleon MPAS 2.0 on 20 meters can get from Ireland to South America on this setup as I saw from May to October in the Evening. Setup in 5 mins flat. It works so well I decided to leave it up permanently and take it down only when I want to go portable.
Good to experiment with other antennas, loops are good because they do work well above 7 Mhz are simple to setup, need no radials or trees.
The SuperAntenna MP1 is another good antenna, breaks down into an incredibly small package and the supplied clamp is really convenient to clamp to a gate or a bench but requires re-tuning for different bands but as I said the size it breaks down to is remarkable. Great for portable, taking on the bicycle etc. Superantenna MP1 and Chameleon MPAS 2.0 work well with the FT-891 and 100 Watts.Small Loops tend to only handle 10-20 watts max on SSB.
When I had my Xiegu X5105 5 Watt QRP radio I was able to go off on my bicycle, fit the Superantenna MP1 in a small bag with the radials and some coax, find a nice place and attach the antenna to the gate with the clamp, tiny package, no messing with trees and I made contacts.
It doesn't all have to be about making 100's more contacts, sometimes it's the buzz of using low power and making contacts on less than optimal antennas.
@@o00scorpion00o whoa, epic reply. I didn’t mean qrp was any less fun. Just mentioned that a dipole in the tree (if you have one) will have way better ears than that loop so rotating it inst a good argument for using it over the other.
@@forgetyourlife lol no I know you didn't mean QRP wasn't fun and it's good you made the point that the Dipole would have made more contacts, with better ears too and for a lot less money I suppose I was just making the point that sometimes it's quick deployment that matter most, depending on the circumstances.
Earned a sub, good video... 73
Thank you very much for your explanation, I am considering what antenna to use. 73 de BH1EWI
You are welcome!
I like mag loops, very easy and cheap to build, makes me wonder if £360 for what's basically two patch lead's and a air spaced capacitor in a plastic box and a tuning knob, is it worth it
Thanks for sharing. 73 Peter
Of course it's worth it if someone doesn't have the time or means to build one, if someone is working 5 days a week, up at 6 and home at 7pm spend some time with the kids before bed, have dinner you hardly have time for radio let alone build antennas. Weekends you want to spend more time with the kids.
There's all sorts of reasons People buy antennas rather than build them.
@@o00scorpion00o hi there, the last mag loop I made from spare parts I had laying around and took less than an hour to put together, that's why I question the cost not just for this particular mag loop but many of the others that are available, saying that there is one loop that's worth it if you look for G4TPH he builds a good loop
@@adam-g7crq I don't have the knowledge to be able to do this in 1 hr or the parts lying around as I expect many others don't also but I do intend to build one someday when my 2 Sons are a little older they can watch me and help out and share in the fun watching it catch fire or work lol.
@@o00scorpion00o well good luck in that, and I hope you and your son's have great fun, this is a fantastic hobby with lots of options 👍
Agree
Thanks for viewing/ 73 Peter
I brought a dipole from yourselves g5 loft based gets me all over the place
Sounds great. 73 Peter
Will this work wit the IC 7300 or any other radio please.
The power rating is stated to be 10W. I think it would take a bit more - say 20W. BUT, you then start to get into the dangers of high power proximity, particularly as you approach 30MHz. So yes you can as long as you observe the power limit. 73 Peter
Have you seent he extortyionat price lo !
The 705 has a built in SWR graph function… should just use that to tune.
Not if you are using a magnetic loop. The internal ATU MUST be switched off for correct operation.
@@watersstanton I didn’t say anything about the ATU… something the 705 doesn’t have…
AL - Alpha Loop
Thanks for watching
Hi, that is the antenna I need the only question is healthy for use inside close to me.
I usually really like your videos.
For example you were the reason why I got myself a BB7V and it's just perfect for my needs here in the big city.
But your tip with the antenna switch may be the fastest way to destroy your analyzer.
Two antennas yes, but never a transmitting device in combination with a receiver.
If the switch fails or the operator makes a mistake, you transmit into your analyzer...
I suspect that magnetic loop antennas could present a Health & Safety issue. While it is unwise to stand too close to *any* transmitting antenna, this is unlikely with conventional antennas which have an elevated location. But a Magnetic Loop located indoors might be right next to the operator. So don't "microwave" yourselves and NEVER put a hand inside the loop while transmitting.
Tell that to the 5W 2m handheld guys! Peter
You can disagree, do not be angry, but first qso on 21 cw you are calling only "g3ojv", then it was me "again again" and IU3BTY "again", why go "9a6kx from g3ojv" and "iu3bt from g3ojv" when same as on cw station calling expecting only your callsign ? :)
For me, it is better to go with /QRP at the end, I always try to listen and pay attention to QRP-ers, and /QRP is in brain "deep memory" and can be pulled out in low signal and bad SNR...
Hi Mirko - I guess we all operate in different ways - it's worked for me over the past 61 years. 73 Peter.
If only the IC-705 did Morse decode.
Morse decoders even when included, are not perfect. 73 Peter.
@@watersstanton Like antennas, they are better than none. Also, I am trying to learn morse by doing. I am looking for small morse keyboard, a bit like the one datong used to make, but not a touch sensitive one or enormous and clunky like the MFJ one.
KN6MCT
Thanks for viewing. 73 Peter
I do enjoy your videos Peter, very well explained in clear language. I have subscribed but sure I was before, not sure what happened. 73 de 2E0TWD
Many thanks Paddy. Take care. 73 Peter.