WSPRLite Test - Magloop on 40m

Having run very successful week-long transmissions on 20 and 30m using 200mW WSPR recently, I turned by attention earlier this week to the final test for now - on 40m.

The approach of a particularly severe storm - 'Doris,' meant the 40m test had to be curtailed after only two and a half days.

The results are extremely favourable in comparison with an OCFD atop a clear hill:

Magloop (blue) vs. OCFD (red)

The advantage of the magloop is that, for the most part, it keeps up with the OCFD most of the time, and is somewhat superior to it during the night time.

Now, a comparison with a doublet, which returns an even better result:

Magloop (blue) vs. Doublet (red)

And finally, the magloop loses out significantly to a 'skywire' type horizontal loop, which has much better night time performance:

Magloop (blue) vs. Skywire loop (red)

As always, take the results in context.  Overall, and considering the antenna is just 1.2m across and covers down to 5MHz, the achievement of the loop is really quite outstanding.  Certainly, those people who keep bleating on that a small loop is nothing more than a dummy load are once again definitively proven wrong, even on 40m, where a small loop of this size is starting to lose efficiency.