Mike compares four active mag loop antennas

Many thanks to Jon Hudson who shared the following on the SDRplay Facebook page:

In this new video, Mike Harwood compares 4 different active mag loop antenna at various frequencies up to 52MHz using two SDRplay RSPduos which allowed simultaneous spectrum snapshots of the 4 loops in action with real signals.

These are loops from Bonito, Cross Country Wireless, LZ1AQ and Wellbrook.

This is the second of Mike’s antenna comparison videos. He welcomes comments which will help shape the content for future antenna experiments:

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10 thoughts on “Mike compares four active mag loop antennas

  1. Mark

    People can listen to my SDR’s here with Bonito Megaloop FX and Megadipol.

    This one uses the Bonito MegaLoop FX ( 15 meter long loop version )

    http://emeraldsdr1.proxy.kiwisdr.com:8073/

    This one uses the MeaDipol

    http://emeraldsdr.proxy.kiwisdr.com:8073/

    I’ve always been very happy with them. Another one to check out is the Bonito MA305 Whip, it’s performance for it’s size just blows me away every time I use it, I don’t have it connected to any Kiwi as I use it mostly for SWL on my portable radios but it’s simply an amazing antenna for it’s size.

    Reply
  2. Andrew (grayhat)

    whatever, I’d go for the LZ1AQ forever, imVHo it’s the best of the bunch and offers FAR more config flexibilty than the others, then by the way and as usual YMMV as they used to say

    Reply
  3. Mike Agner

    They aren’t reviewing any American loops. I wrote to SDRPlay who said they are reviewing loops basically for consideration of mentioning SDRPlay on their website. That’s their right, of course, but it gives the American market the cold shoulder even tho the SDRPlay units are sold here too. Lots of folks were asking about reviewing the MLA30 series – I doubt they ever will.

    Heck it took them this long to even acknowledge that Wellbrook (which has even been given a WRTH award) was practically in their back yard. There was a time when they were recommending Bonito antennas. I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised.

    Reply
    1. Andrew (grayhat)

      I doubt they’ll recommend the MLA, not only it’s almost a clone (and I think they saw enough clones of the RSP1), but sincerely I don’t think it may be up to par with other active loop antennas, sure, the performance/price ratio is good, but then, to correct some of the issues the antenna shows, one will need to put his hands at the soldering iron, and at that point, the antenna won’t be original anymore

      As for US products, the NooElec balun and LanA HF could allow anyone to put together a much better antenna than the MLA at a fraction of the price of other commercial ones 😉

      Reply
          1. TomL

            The DX Engineering RPA2 you mention below shorted out on me twice. It does NOT have a simple protective circuit to protect from static build up. Won’t be using that one ever again.

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