AmateurRadio.com

The Chameleon CHA P Loop antenna

I had a chance to once again use my new Chameleon CHA P loop antenna  and it's now time to give this antenna my humble review. To begin with I shopped around for a loop antenna and looked at the following brands. The Alexloop walkham  loop, the Caras HF 315 loop, Alpha loop antennas and finally Chameleons CHA P loop antenna. Most of these antenna had good reviews for the most part but I chose the Chameleon CHA P loop for it's rugged construction and slightly better reviews. The loop comes with very easy to follow instructions that contain in-depth details about the antenna. I ordered it from DX Engineering and the delivery time was GREAT along with their customer service. The loop does not take long to assembly and wth practice I have it up and running in under 10 minutes. Below is a list of the positives I found with antenna:

1. It has a very small foot print when setup and is very portable which makes it easy for traveling on foot or bike. 
2. In very little time you can get very proficient as setting up the antenna. 
3. The Loop (LMR-400) section and PL-259 connectors are very good quality and also they are fitted with heat shrink to add a nice water tight fit. 
4. The tuning box is sealed and weather proof just for those days when Murphy decides to bring some rain on your portable operations. 

   The tuning box

5. The 6:1 reduction gear makes tuning accurate and finding the peak noise level very fast. On the tuning box I added a 40-10 meter decal to remind me of tuning direction. Also I added the DX Engineering sticker as I am blown away with their customer service. 
6. I was able to successfully tune the loop to at least 1.3:1 on all bands wether is was 10m or 40 meters. 
7. Once the antenna was tuned to the lowest SWR and you move away from the antenna the SWR does not change. In the past with other loop antennas I have used the tuning know was on the top of the tuning box. Your hand being in the loop would affect the SWR and once your hand was removed the SWR would change and this made tuning frustrating. Other loops did not have the 6:1 gear reduction and finding the sweet spot and lowest SWR was a challenge. The slightest touch of the tuning knob threw the SWR off and often you would have to start over again. 
8. On the base of the handle is a 1/4-20 female thread that makes putting this antenna on a tripod a breeze. Other loops I have used do not have this and I had to make up a homemade mount. 
9. RG-58 with integrated RFI choke feed-line decouples the Faraday coupling loop from the radio which is essential to prevent SWR fluctuation while rotating the antenna or moving the coax cable around.
10. If you have an HOA situation and getting on the air is a challenge this antenna could be the answer for you. 

    Quality PL-259 on Loop

Mike Weir, VE9KK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Brunswick, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

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72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least!
Larry Makoski, W2LJ, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Jersey, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

The graphic for Windows 10 Mail:


Do you see it?

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least!
Larry Makoski, W2LJ, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Jersey, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

TX Factor goes digital as Mike Marsh gives Bob McCreadie an introduction to operating on DMR, Yaesu Fusion and D Star as part of his digital fun. In part one of the series, they take a trip to a local farm to see how an amateur has set up his own Fusion Gateway.

Ever wonder why QSL cards take a long time to complete their journey? Bob finds out what we can do to help speed up he process.

Pete visits Norwich to spend a day with the Norfolk Amateur Radio Club at their annual field day event, Radio Active to discover why they won the coveted prize of RSGB Large Club of The Year.

Episode 17 of TX Factor is now live at www.txfactor.co.uk

Happy Summer viewing!

TX Factor Team

Nick Bennett 2EØFGQ co-hosts TX Factor with Bob McCreadie GØFGX and Mike Marsh G1IAR. Contact the team at [email protected]

Just in case you missed it - THE Summer QRP Classic - The Flight of the Bumblebees is on!  The event is on Sunday, July 31st from 17:00 to 21:00 UTC.


To get a Bumblebee number, you have to first to to the Bee database to see what's been assigned:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1r0ICCSjbErmIfRQz2U7hZJkSccuQ5ukHEtVXzmOF5eM/edit#gid=119767365

Send an e-mail to [email protected] and be sure to include your first name, call sign, the field location you plan to operate from and your three top choices for a Bee number.

Keep in mind that you are encouraged to participate in the FOBB as a home station - but only Field Stations can have a Bee #.

After you've sent KI6SN your request, be sure to keep an eye on the roster at the link above. That's where you will be able to determine what number you've been assigned.

The rest of the rules can be found at http://arsqrp.blogspot.com/2017/07/announcing-ars-2017-fobb.html

FOBB is, was, and continues to be the best Summer Outdoor QRP event, bar none. It's the equivalent of the Masters, or Wimbledon or Tour de France of the QRP Summer contest season. Get out there, get some sunshine and some breeze in your hair and have fun!

I can hear wings buzzing already!

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least!
Larry Makoski, W2LJ, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Jersey, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

Just in case you missed it - THE Summer QRP Classic - The Flight of the Bumblebees is on!  The event is on Sunday, July 31st from 17:00 to 21:00 UTC. To get a Bumblebee number, you have to first to to the Bee database to see what's been assigned: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1r0ICCSjbErmIfRQz2U7hZJkSccuQ5ukHEtVXzmOF5eM/edit#gid=119767365 Send an e-mail to [email protected] and be sure to include your first name, call sign, the field location you plan to operate from and your three top choices for a Bee number. Keep in mind that you are encouraged to participate in the FOBB as a home station - but only Field Stations can have a Bee #. After you've sent KI6SN your request, be sure to keep an eye on the roster at the link above. That's where you will be able to determine what number you've been assigned. The rest of the rules can be found at http://arsqrp.blogspot.com/2017/07/announcing-ars-2017-fobb.html FOBB is, was, and continues to be the best Summer Outdoor QRP event, bar none. It's the equivalent of the Masters, or Wimbledon or Tour de France of the QRP Summer contest season. Get out there, get some sunshine and some breeze in your hair and have fun! I can hear wings buzzing already! 72 de Larry W2LJ QRP - When you care to send the very least!
Larry Makoski, W2LJ, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Jersey, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

The first antenna I put up after we moved in here was a simple 2×5 meter dipole sloping down from the roof into our garden. I wrote about it – and the noise it received – here

Last year summer I finally had time to do some maintenance on my old CB-whip and put it up on the sheet metal roof.

I put it up mainly to get my station licence, because the amount of noise it received on shortwave was as much as the dipole, hence I didn’t log many QSOs with it. Still, it turned out to be a marvelous antenna to do medium- and longwave DXing and I logged some 285 different NDBs on longwave in the last 12 months.

But now, this summer, it is time to get serious about putting up a decent antenna. Being a sensible guy I set myself some goals:

• The antenna has to be cut for the 20 meter band
• It has to have lower noise pickup than the rooftop vertical
• I have to use whatever materials I have lying around
• Money can only be spend on the odd nuts and bolts

Then there is the question on how to determine what is good, better and best. My thoughts were to use WSPR to monitor how well an antenna would receive. If you do this scientifically you use two identical setups with only one variable: the antenna. Unfortunately I don’t have two IC-7200s, so I decided to go for an alternate approach: day one the first antenna, the other day the other antenna. This adds the variable of different conditions during different days, but over the course of a week or two you will get a broad picture, I reckoned.

The first two antennas I compared were the rooftop vertical and the sloping dipole. They were both resonant on 20 meters and I used that bands WSPR frequency to compare. After comparing for two weeks I found only a minimal difference: they were equally good/bad. I did get consistent beacons from VY0ERC, though (probably the most northerly located amateur radio club in the world). But since there are only a limited number of WSPR stations on 20 meters I decided to switch to monitoring JT65 stations for the next comparison.

I had another CB whip laying around and after gutting it and adding two 5 meter radials I put it up in the far end of the garden. Now our garden is only 10 meters deep, but at least it is at some distance from any noise source in our house and the neighbours.

This time I only tested for 10 days, but again I didn’t notice much difference. Even though the rooftop vertical was noisier it would still receive all the JT65/JT9 stations the garden vertical could receive. It was only that I wandered up into the SSB portion of the 20 meter band that I noticed a difference. Comparing stations from Hong Kong, Japan and central Russia was like comparing night and day. Night being signals barely coming out of the noise, day being comfortable copy. The final confirmation came from my Olivia friend Ken in Japan. He calculated an +18 dB advantage of the garden vertical over the rooftop vertical during our most recent QSO.

So part 1 of our Antenna Summer has been a success in the fact that I now know that the garden is a better place for an antenna than the roof top. Less noise, stronger signals. But the question now arises: isn’t a metal roof a very good counterpoise and shouldn’t it be beneficial to the workings of antennas? Why does it degrade the performance of my rooftop vertical?

Hans "Fong" van den Boogert, BX2ABT, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Taiwan. Contact him at [email protected].