Last Friday's evening meeting was an interesting change of pace: the radio club built some of its first antennas. As preparation for our upcoming fox-hunting event, we chose to construct some "small loop" antennas. Unlike other antennas, these have sharp nulls through the "hole" of the loop. This means that signals from those directions will be strongly attenuated (weakened) -- allowing the antenna to identify the direction of a source by listening for the drop in signal strength.
Small loop antennas are simple to construct and are very forgiving when it comes to size. However, they cannot be used for transmitting without modification, as they have an incredibly low feedpoint impedence. Adding a capacitive load to the antenna converts it to a mag loop, a very popular form of compact antenna used by amateurs with limited space.
If you're interested in learning more about antennas - and perhaps building some yourself - make sure to join the club!
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