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Indeed! I've already learned I'm an antenna junky. I've been sucking up information about full wave loops and how various bands resonate on a larger loop.
I sort of regret not doing this in late fall. I could spend all winter modeling potential antennae in MMANA-GAL until I find exactly what I want to set up. It's all fascinating. As it stands, I have to get the garden in very soon so that's eating up a lot of head space and time outside of my job. That said, I'm probably going to go with an FT 891 and I'm toying with building my own DX Commander clone. I have a CNC router that can make the parts that can't be bought. At the same time, buying one would save some time and put me on the air faster. Eventually I also think I want a full wave 160m loop but I don't know that I can get the height to make it work how I would want it to.
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Quote History Quoted:Quoted:Congratulations! Welcome to the party.
Now the real learning begins
Indeed! I've already learned I'm an antenna junky. I've been sucking up information about full wave loops and how various bands resonate on a larger loop.
I sort of regret not doing this in late fall. I could spend all winter modeling potential antennae in MMANA-GAL until I find exactly what I want to set up. It's all fascinating. As it stands, I have to get the garden in very soon so that's eating up a lot of head space and time outside of my job. That said, I'm probably going to go with an FT 891 and I'm toying with building my own DX Commander clone. I have a CNC router that can make the parts that can't be bought. At the same time, buying one would save some time and put me on the air faster. Eventually I also think I want a full wave 160m loop but I don't know that I can get the height to make it work how I would want it to.
I see you're picking up the language very rapidly
DX commander is an excellent idea, but don't get too bound up in "cloning" it. Multiple elements connected to a dipole feedpoint are often called a "fan dipole" - a DX commander is an iteration of a "fan vertical". There are numerous ways to physically construct the electrical contraption of having multiple vertical elements connected together at the base.
I'm not a great fan of the loop, it's a lot of wire and space to get the same signal as a dipole, and as with any large antenna used on higher frequencies the pattern gets wonky. I am a fan of, well, fan dipoles, as they're both resonant and have reasonable signal patterns on multiple bands.
This loop variation did however catch my eye, as it's a dual band loop having good high angle/short range signal patterns on both bands. Might be something interesting to give a try:
https://practicalantennas.com/designs/loops/bowtie/