indoor loop antenna recommendations...

[ChrisSmolinski]

When looking at others' comparisons of antennas, particularly loops, it's important to consider the RF environment where the comparisons were made.

In the typical high RFI urban/suburban environments, it's quite possible for inexpensive antennas such as the W6LVP to compare favorably with a Wellbrook/etc. That's not because the loops actually have the same performance, but rather because the local high RFI levels are the limiting factor.

If you live in such an area, then yes, it doesn't make sense to buy a "better" antenna since you won't be able to take advantage of the higher performance.  The same goes for erecting large passive antennas. Even if you had the room to install a 500 ft Beverage or Sky Loop on a city lot, there's really no point.

But if you live in a rural / low RFI environment, the situation is likely much different, and better performing antennas start to make sense.

Of course you can always make a bad situation worse, even in relatively high RFI environments, by using very poorly made active antennas that cause all sorts of problems (overloading, images, mixing products, etc).   The goal is not more signal, the goal is a higher signal to noise ratio. Modern communications receivers and high performance SDRs are very sensitive, and can work extremely well with "low" signal levels, such as from Beverage antennas.

[~SIGINT~]

I am going to second Chris's comment:

Modern communications receivers and high performance SDRs are very sensitive, and can work extremely well with "low" signal levels

I will be the first one to admit that I was completely disappointed with my Wellbrook when I first received it. My current location is within a few miles of several 50 kW AM transmitters and the SDR's input was splattered by inter-modulation. My initial fear was that the antenna's pre-amp was causing the IMD so out came the spectrum analyzer. I was very pleased to learn that the output was clean and free of IMD. That was a big relief. The issue was that the antenna has so much gain that it was overloading the SDR's input. My temporary fix was to insert a 10 dB pad in-line between the antenna and the SDR. My permanent fix was to replace the pad with a Nooelec Flamingo notch filter. That cured all of the issues and despite the 30 dB notch of the Flamingo there is still plenty of gain left over to DX the broadcast band. I now have both an AM and FM Flamingo permanently installed on the input of the SDR, regardless of the antenna that I have switched in to the input.

P.S. Support from Wellbrook was top notch with this issue. I feel confident endorsing their product.

Have a look through the thread below. Several of us had a good running discussion on this topic along with pictures etc ...

Best MWDX Antenna?
https://www.hfunderground.com/board/index.php/topic,80208.0.html