[time-nuts] Re: Loop Antennas

[Poul-Henning Kamp]

--------
JOHN HARTZELL via time-nuts writes:
> Dear time nuts,
>
> Who has experience using loop antennas on the front end of receivers for receipt of Loran C,
> and other time signals?

I do:  I played a lot with VLF/SDR and LORAN-C, before people turned
all the transmitters off and installed lawn-mower robots in the
radio-spectrum.

The crucial trick is to /not/ make the loop resonant, ie: no parallel capacitor.

I made all my Loran-C/VLF experiments with this $20 home-brew antenna:

	http://phk.freebsd.dk/loran-c/Antenna/

The mad ELF-VLF scientists at VLF.IT has plenty of other good
schematics, but this one worked a treat for me.

Today I would have built two loops, mounted at an right angle, and made my
ADC dual-channel as well.

First round of LORAN experiments:

	http://phk.freebsd.dk/loran-c/

Second round:

	http://phk.freebsd.dk/AducLoran/

The two .gif animations are the only recordings I know of, showing "dance of the nightwave"

Enjoy:  It is an incredibly satisfying thing to play with.

Poul-Henning

-- 
Poul-Henning Kamp       | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
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