By Rick Rogers, KI8GX

A “One-Masted Sloop” for

O
ver 33 years of hamming, one of fence wire but it seemed like I was al- on 40 meters), with the feed point el-
my favorite activities is building ways repairing damaged masts and bro- evated on a single 30-foot support should
and testing antennas. Of all the ken wires. [Solid wire is more likely than resonate on 40, 20, 15 and 10 meters. The
types of antennas tried, I get the best bang stranded wire to break as a result of re- antenna should also produce reasonable
for the buck from simple, horizontal peated flexing.—Ed.] After about six gain in multiple directions, especially at
loops. months of constant struggle against the the shorter wavelengths (see Figure 2).
elements, the antenna and three of its four This “one-masted sloop,” a sloping loop
Designing the Loop supports succumbed to wind-driven hail. supported and fed at the top corner, turns
An interesting property of loop anten- After the storm, and several unsatis- out to be a good performer and costs al-
nas is that they are harmonically resonant. fying weeks trying to get by with a home- most nothing.
As shown by Doug DeMaw, W1FB, a brew vertical, I thought to try something
loop designed for 7.1 MHz will also reso- a little less ambitious. What I had in mind Building the Loop
nate at 14.2 MHz, 21.3 MHz, 28.4 MHz, was a loop that would use only the single Construction couldn’t be easier. First,
etc. 1 See Figure 1. The ability to operate remaining support. A quick session with buy or build a dipole center insulator with
on multiple bands without retuning and EZNEC showed that a sloping loop, 140 coaxial connector as described in The
the multidirectional nature of their radia- feet in circumference (a full wavelength ARRL Handbook for Radio Amateurs (see
tion patterns make horizontal loops es-
pecially useful for DX, contest, and net
control applications where having to wait
to rotate a beam can be a disadvantage.
Another advantage of the loop antenna is
that it tends to be quieter on receive than
some other designs, such as Yagis or
verticals.2
The best antenna I ever built was a
160-meter full-wave horizontal loop.
Even though the antenna was only up
about 35 feet, it did a pretty good job on
160, is spite of radiating most of its en-
ergy skyward. Where this antenna was
really effective, though, was on its har-
monics. An EZNEC 3 model of this
antenna shows, for example, that at 10
meters, it radiates multiple low-angle
lobes, some with gain figures of more
than 13 dBi.
Of course, a monster like this had
(note past tense!) its problems. It required
4 masts, 540 feet of wire and a big chunk
of land. As the reader might guess, an-
tennas that big suffer a lot from the wind,
even if made out of relatively strong wire.
Mine was made of 17 gauge aluminum Figure 1—SWR vs. frequency plots for the 136-foot, 40 through 10-meter sloop. The
SWR minimum for the four bands is easily adjusted by adding or deleting small
1
Notes appear on page 46. lengths of wire from the loop.
44 April 2002
 Figure 3).4 Connect the opposite ends of
the 140-foot wire to the center insulator.
I prefer 14 gauge stranded and insulated
wire because it is easy to work with. Tie
50-foot lengths of 3/16-inch rope to the
antenna at points 35 feet away from the
center connector on each side. [You may
wish to use a ceramic insulator at the side
and bottom tie-line attachment points,
particularly if high power will be used;
see Figure 4.—Ed.] Connect 50-Ω co-
axial cable such as RG-8 or RG-58 to the
connector and raise the feed point to a
height of 30 to 40 feet. Pull the side tie
lines sideways and down until the upper
half of the antenna forms a taut
90-degree angle and slopes at 30 to 45
degrees with respect to the ground (see
Figure 3). Tie off these lines. Attach a
short (2-3 foot) length of line to the bot-
tom point of the loop and tie off the bot-
tom of the loop to a stake or a fence post.
The loop will need to be pruned for
the antenna to resonate at the desired fre-
quencies. To do this without raising and
lowering the antenna for each adjustment,
remove lengths of wire at the bottom of
the loop and then solder the ends back
together. Shorten the loop a few inches
at a time until the SWR approaches 1:1
at the desired 40-meter frequency. Add-
ing wire will lower the resonant fre-
quency on all bands.
In my case, a final length of 136 feet
yielded SWR values lower than 3:1 over
Figure 2—EZNEC study of the far field radiation patterns of the 40 through 10-meter the entire 40, 20 and 15-meter bands. The
“Sloop.” The arrow indicates the direction of the slope. A is the azimuth plot at loop also produced a 2:1 SWR over al-
30 degrees elevation. B shows the elevation plot along the axis of maximum gain,
45-225 degrees. most 1 MHz of the 10 meter band (see

Figure 3—The vertical support of the Single-Masted Sloop can be a mast, tree, building, flagpole, and so on. The simplicity of the
design and the multidirectional gain delivered at the harmonics make this antenna a good candidate for Field Day.
April 2002 45
 4
Chapter 20 (“Antennas and Projects”) of any
recent ARRL Handbook contains drawings
that illustrate ways of attaching a center NEW PRODUCTS
connector.
THE IXTH 10P60 P-CHANNEL
Rick Rogers, KI8GX, was first licensed as POWER MOSFET
WN6HGY in 1968, followed by WA6EZT,
N9COO and N7GEF. He is a professor of Neu- ! Power semiconductor specialist IXYS
roscience at Louisiana State University where announces its new P-channel Enhancement
he does research on, and teaches, neurophysi- Mode Avalanche Rated Power MOSFET,
ology and physiological instrumentation. A the IXTH 10P60. The device has a continu-
chance encounter with a neighborhood ham ous drain current rating of 10 A, a V ds rat-
cleaning out his garage (SamWestfall, K6PHH) ing of 600 V and an “on state” resistance
in 1967 started Rick, then 13 years old, on his of 1.15 ohms. The fast-switching MOSFET
career in ham radio and science. Ham radio is packaged in a rugged TO-247 housing
provided an ideal entry point into neurophysi- and has a power rating of 300 W at 25º C.
ology since the principal elements of the ner- Price: $10.10 in quantities of 1000. For
vous system neurons “talk” to each other us- more information, contact IXYS at 3540
ing frequency modulated electrical pulses. The Bassett St, Santa Clara, CA 95054; tel 408-
Figure 4—One simple method of ARRL Handbook for Radio Amateurs can be 982-0700, fax 408-496-0670; www.ixys.net.
attaching tie ropes to wire antennas. found on the bookshelves of quite a few neuro-
scientists, whether they are hams or not. You KLINGENFUSS FREQUENCY
can reach the author at 9831 Bank St, Clinton, GUIDES FOR 2002
Figure 1). Since I typically hang out in LA 70722; [email protected]. ! Veteran short-wave frequency sleuth
the phone sections of these bands, my Joerg Klingenfuss has released the 2002 ver-
antenna was tuned for the best match sions of his venerable broadcast and utility
there. My old Kenwood TS-830 and an- station frequency guides—in book form and
VHF/UHF CENTURY on CD-ROM. The 2002 volumes include The
cient Hallicrafters HT-41 kilowatt ampli-
fier—both with adjustable pi matching CLUB AWARDS 2002 Shortwave Frequency Guide, The 2002
Guide to Utility Radio Stations and The 2002
output networks—easily tune to this an- Super Frequency List on CD-ROM (the CD
tenna at any frequency on all four bands. Compiled by Eileen Sapko
Awards Manager now runs on every version of Windows from
Most recently manufactured rigs can 3.1 through XP and includes detailed clan-
handle the 2 or 3:1 SWR at the band The ARRL VUCC numbered certificate is awarded to destine, domestic and international broadcast-
amateurs who submit written confirmation for contacts with
edges. [To lessen the SWR, particularly the minimum number of Maidenhead grid locators (indi- ing schedules).
at higher frequencies, the loop can also cated in italics) for each band listing. The numbers
preceeding call signs indicate total grid locators claimed.
be fed with open-wire line.—Ed.] The numbers following the call signs indicate claimed en-
dorsement levels. The totals shown are for credits given
from December 8, 2001 to February 11, 2002.
Results The VUCC application form, field sheets and complete
list of VHF Awards Managers can be found on the VUCC
The results with this antenna are grati- Web site at www.arrl.org/awards/vucc. An SASE to ARRL
fying, especially given that it can be built is required if you cannot download these forms. If you have
questions relating to VUCC, send an e-mail to
in a couple of hours from scrap wire and [email protected].
hardware, tunes easily, doesn’t need to 50 MHz WD5K 900
be elevated to great height and occupies 100 K5TN 500
1185 W9CSY N6JV 425
a reasonable “footprint.” Stations in Eu- 1186 Void KC6ZWT 125
1187 K6YK W6OMF 275
rope, Japan, South America and the 1188 KØDLW WX7M 375
1189 PY5IP WO9S 225
Azores were worked with 100 W on 20, 1190 VE2VLJ
15 and 10 meters within an hour or so of 1191
1192
K1NU
KJ6CA
144 MHz
100
completion and with good signal reports. 1193 KB8GC 597 NL7CO
1194 K6CF W6OMF 125
I tried the antenna on 40 meters during 1195 N8YV
1196 KD5GJR 432 MHz
the November 2001 Sweepstakes to get 1197 KE6TVM 50
some idea of its performance on that 1198 SM3GBA G4RGK 190
1199 KC8KSK
band. I was pleased to find that contacts 1200 WB6YIY 902 MHz
1201 WM3O 25
could be made with the antenna on both 1202 W4KVS 32 N2BJ
coasts from central Ohio at midday in 1203 W4PRZ
G8BQX 500 2.3 GHz
spite of EZNEC showing much of the OK1MP 350 10 Also included this year is support for the
VE6NTT 300 66 N2BJ
energy on 40 meters radiates straight up VE7VDX 200 Wavecom Digital Data Decoder card and
KØCS 450 10 GHz
(see Figure 2). The performance, simplic- KØDI 150 5 details on how to listen in on the newest,
ity and cost of this antenna suggest to me NEØP 225 117 NØUGY most secretive shortwave digital modes—
WAØFQK 175 118 KH6/WAØQII
that this would be the antenna I would KAØJGH 600 AA5C 35 including commercial HF e-mail!
K1BD 125 Relied on by professional and hobbyist lis-
roll up and take along on that low- K1SIX 850 24 GHz
budget DXpedition to the Caribbean. WB1FLD 250 5 teners for years, Klingenfuss publications are
NJ2F 400 13 NØUGY
W2BZY 525 known for their thoroughness and accuracy. For
Notes KB2TGU 350 Satellite detailed content descriptions and color screen
1 N3RN 200 100
Doug DeMaw, W1FB, “A Closer Look at Hori- W3HHN 375 113 KB9RCA shots, see www.klingenfuss.org. The Short-
zontal Loop Antennas,” QST , May 1990, W4GLV 400 KK5DO 650 wave Frequency Guide (order no. 8663-$34.95
p 28. KE4HOA 200 W5ADC 250
2
See Note 1.
N4MM 750 K5OE 625 plus shipping) and Super Frequency List (or-
W4UDH 675 N5AFV 325
3
EZNEC 3.0 Antenna Design Software by KE5K 200 K9HF 300 der no. 8671—$24.95 plus shipping) are avail-
Roy Lewallen, W7EL (www.eznec.com/; W5OZI
AA5XE
900
600
able from ARRL Headquarters, tel (toll-free)
[email protected]). 888-277-5289; www.arrl.org/shop/.
46 April 2002