My Favorite All-Band Antenna



IF I COULD ONLY HAVE ONE ANTENNA, THIS WOULD BE IT. 

THIS PAGE IS STILL UNDER CONSTRUCTION.

If your goal is to work all or many of the bands, in my opinion, no other antenna matches this antenna for performance and reliability. Unfortunately you need a big space to deploy it.  If you don't have a quarter acre (1000 sq. m) available for you antenna, look for something else.  This one requires a lot of space.

Meet the Champion:  The Lazy Loop (Sky Hook)

This antenna is a square horizontal loop, 21m (69') per side, 84m (276') total length. Although many people attempt to feed it with coax cable, I prefer to feed it with openwire feedline.  It requires 4 poles or elevated points and they should be about 10m (33') high.  I assume it will still work well at lower heights, but I have always installed it at 33 ft.

The special thing about this antenna is, it has primarily high angle radiation on the low bands, 80 and 40m, yet low angle radiation on the higher bands.  This makes it great for local communcations on the low bands, and at the same time great for working DX on the high bands.  

I have used this antenna about 8 times during field day contests.  In several of these operations we had either a 3-element trap beam, or 2-element quad.  For transatlantic or transpacific contacts, the Lazy Loop was equally as strong as the directional antennas which were also mounted at 10m (33') height.  

Despite its reputation as a "cloud burner" on the low bands, I have worked my fair share of DX on 80 and 40m with this antenna.  This was my only CW antenna at my 1979 expedition to Andorra. 

Some people try to feed this with coax.  It can be done, but then the length of the loop becomes very critical.  See the NC4Y Loop.

In the past, I preferred to feed it with 450 Ohm openwire feedline and match it with a good symmetrical matchbox, such as the Annecke Symmetrical Coupler.

In the meantime I have learned (tnx to W8JI, DF2BC, and DL1VU) that a 'good' asymmetrical antenna matchbox with an EXTERNAL 1:1 Guanella balun will work just as good, sometimes even better.

IF I COULD ONLY HAVE ONE ANTENNA, THIS WOULD BE IT.