^photo from manufacturer's website^

I live in condo unit and most of my antennas are stealth affairs hidden behing the fences of my 2 patios, in the attic, strung along the roof edge and alike. By no means they work as good as the full size antennas of a similar disign, but they do work. For one, my fixed 17m wire moxon in the attic still surprises me every time I use it.

In the past I used the DIY small transmitting loop for 17-40m I build using old Russian vacuum capacitor and copper grounding strap from Georgia Copper. I made some SSB contacts on that antenna, but disassembled it as it wasn't robust enough of a setup/structure for me to use on a daily basis, just a proof of concept. At the time I had no antenna analyzer and it was pain to tune. But I liked the results, I remember reaching across the pond to Ireland on 20m SSB with ease, so I always wanted to finish the project.

Fast forward to October 2020, I saw >this< STL antenna on Internet. It looked ok, the description sounded even better, and I ordered it.

This weekend I assembled and tested the antenna, at first from inside the house at the 2nd floor as there was a tropical storm here in Miami for 2 days, and then, when the weather cleared, repeated tests outside, at ground level, next to the house.For testing, I decided to use FT8 as this is very sensitive mode and one can see instantly how the signal propagates/heard around the globe.

If you never used a small transmitting loop antenna, you should know that it is not the easiest antenna to tune. SWR plot's minimum could be very sharp and the antenna has to be tuned precisely to the frequency where it needed to be, otherwise the signal will not be best, even if the tuner is able to match the load to radio's output. The advantage of this particular loop antenna in its big butterfly-type capacitor with large dial, which helps fine tune the capacitance (that is how you tune the antenna). I used my antenna analyzer to help tune the antenna:

^17m SWR plot, inside placement^^17m SWR plot, outside placement^

In house, the loop worked, but it was clearly compromized/attenuated/strongly influenced by the metal cage of the house and the objects in the room. This was obvious as I could not bring SWR down to less than 2 units before using the tuner, and by the signal reports I received (see below signal report maps). Nevetheless, I made 23 contacts, 4 DX (Azores, Mexico, Switzerland and Germany) and the rest was stateside. I started from using the antenna on low power setting but then, looking at the signal reports, brought it up to 90W and left it there for the duration of the test.The loop handled this level of power with no issues.

Here is the screenshot taken shortly after the QSO with CU6NS in Azores on 17m (antenna is inside the house!):

^^WSJT interface window top left with waterfall on top, JTAlert at bottom left, Flex radio interface (SmartSDR) in the center, interfaces to KAT 500 tuner and Elecraft SWR meter on the right. Click image for the original.

I compared the working of the antenna when it was placed outside with my other antennas, both hidden:

• bent 10m-40m doublet strung under the eves of the house at 20ft/6m high: the Magloop was much more sensitive on receive and at least as good or better on transmit
• attic wire moxon for 17m: moxon was better in its favorable directions, in all other directions the loop was on par or better.

To install the loop ouside, I had to weather protect it:

The placement was not ideal (small patio next to the 2 story house), but it was immediately obvious how much the things improved: the min SWR went from 2 to 1, and the reported SNR improved greatly.

Here is couple of maps from https://pskreporter.info/pskmap.html site taken during the test on 20m and 40m.

Here is the map of some of the contacts made using the antenna:

Most if not all of the stations reporting good SNR were using beam antennas, but that's expected. There is no miracle here, just the quality made, robust small transmitting loop. I am happy to play with it and can recommend it to anyone who is interested in portable HF antennas.

73

I went on the air one year ago as KK4MJA; last weekend I celebrated my ham anniversary by participating in IARU Word Championship, now as K4MJA. As always, with my antennas and time available (not much of either), I had no intention to compete but rather to support the real competitors by my effort. I made some contacts and enjoyed it very much. I think it will be even more exiting as I will be able to do the CW...still in the process of leaning it. Here is the map of my contacts during the contest: K4MJA->>IARU HF Championship contact map 73!

Out of all antennas I installed and used at my (antenna-restricted) OTH the one I liked instantly was MFJ "hamstick" dipole(s): the size, the ease of installation, the way it could be rotated manually -- fiberglass mast I use allows it -- and how the signal/noise changes with the rotation. There were problems with the hamstick dipoles though: they turned out not very good radiators, the one for 20m is better than for 40m, but generally all poor and lossy. The little modeling I've done confirmed it. Also, hamstick dipoles I have are low power (125W max).

So...I went on the quest for finding a rotatable dipole which
(1) would fit in my small patio,
(2) could be installed on the fiberglass mast I have and
(3) could handle at least five hundred watts of (recently installed in the shack) Elecraft KPA500.

I came back last week with MFJ-1775 multiband (10-15-20-40m) rotatable dipole, assembled it, tuned and tested during the 2018 ARRL DX SSB Contest this weekend. Here are my impressions:

We went for the Thanksgiving week to New Smyrna Beach, the coastal town just North of Cape Canaveral.

I used the opportunity to test my portable setup with AGM battery (this one in this box):

The loaded 20m MFJ-2220 dipole on the fiberglass telescopic pole MK-6-HD, to be exact.

Here is the short review of the pair:

The usual; I live in condo community with strict HOA rules; antennas outside of my unit is out of the question. Fortunately, I have access to the attic and the roof is asphalt shingles, i.e. its RF transparent. Unfortunately, the attic is very small, about 20x25ft (6.1x7.5 meters).