The 'Snowflake' That Melted

If you've read any of my stuff, or had a QSO with me, then you'll know I'm a very big fan of loop antennas. So, I was very interested indeed to come across David Shortess's (W7PTL) design for a convoluted full wave loop antenna, a PVC pipe variant of the Pfeiffer quad antenna.

My very beautiful - but very deaf - 2-element Pfeiffer quad.  Needs more work...

David's design is squarely aimed at my view of life - antennas that are cheap, practical and made of commonly-available materials.

David's instructions are very clear, even for a pleb like me. In fact, David was kind enough to lend some insight and help when I was putting my loop together.

I had all the PVC pipe for next to nothing money. The junction pieces are significantly more expensive, but the glue is cheap enough. The wire can be just about any old junk.

A side view.  Note the old cement mixer stand - the most useful thing you'll find for amateur radio!

I worked quite hard over a couple of months in the depths of winter to get what my kids now called the 'snowflake' antenna (I think the name should stick!)

 One fine day, I made a simple aluminium boom with shelf brackets as mounting points (a leftover from an abandoned quad loop - have you seen how big these things are, even for 10m?) I strung the loops quite easily onto the boom with cable ties (ty-wraps in American English!) and connected up.

I couldn't quite believe my ears - nothing! Not a dicky bird. A two element Pfeiffer quad was as deaf as a proverbial dormouse. Quite why is a total mystery, and I have yet to test just one loop on its own, in case some bizarre interaction was going on.

I'll have to work a bit more on working this loop out, because it's very compact and potentially very useful. It's even very wind resistant, which is a must for this QTH.

 Even so, it's still a loop that needs mounting up high, and that is always much, much harder than books and magazine articles ever admit is the case. Getting a wire antenna up to 30 feet is hard enough; just try it with a substantial structure like a two-element beam!