Another magloop comparison.

I was interested and mildly amused to read G0KYA's blog post about his latest antenna improvements this morning.

As you can see from the blog, G0KYA expresses delight at being heard around the globe with his 66' (20m) long Windom.  I don't know whether or not there was a conscious decision to omit the power output used for the WSPR test, but at the time I accessed the blog (08:00, 03/11/2018), it certainly wasn't there.

Of course, it's easy to look up the WSPR database and find out what the output was.  So I did.

This reveals that G0KYA was using 37dBm.  That used to be quite a common output in the days before WSPRlite, when QRPp levels of 200mW or less became the de facto standard.

This plot proves my claim on power output used by G0KYA:

Of course, with such a high power output, there is no surprise at all that G0KYA's signal was making it across the globe at 14MHz.  Unfortunately, this doesn't really provide as much useful information as using a lower power does.  For one thing, because most people are using 200mW now, meaningful comparisons with most other operators when you are using 5W is quite difficult.  In fact, even at 200mW, it's difficult to find enough people who operate long enough, or have information published about their antenna systems to make proper, long-term comparisons.

So, let's now look at how my magnetic loop results - just 200mW - compare with G0KYA's 20m-long Windom at 5W.  The plot includes all distances for simultaneous spots:

The result is that, for an output power difference in favour of G0KYA of +14dB, the difference in received signal in his favour - averaged across all distances - is only +8.5dB.

Across DX (>5010km) distances, the difference in favour of G0KYA (+15dB) becomes more in line with the output power difference (+14dB):

And of course, as a result, G0KYA makes it further across the globe:

So I can confidently say that, when power output differences are normalised, my magloop - just two rings of 73cm diameter at 2.5m base height above ground, is, for shorter haul skips, doing better than a 20m-long Windom in an inverted-V sort of configuration, and matches it across DX distances.

I'm glad to see that G0KYA says he's interested in magloops under his QRZ.com page entry (accessed 10:24am, 03/11/2018).  This comparison would suggest it may well be worth him abandoning wire antennas in favour of a well-made magloop!

And if you didn't catch my video of wind tolerance, posted under construction details for the magloop, here it is again for you: