Made in China Wellbrook 1530 Loop Antenna?

[alpard]

But that's hard, Alpard. It involves getting out of bed at odd hours and turning the radio on.

This is true.  Especially recently the DX opening to South America has been early morning time in this location of Europe.  I tend to go to sleep late, and get up late missing all the DXing chances of early mornings.  But if you have SDRPlay or some sort computer operated SDR setup, then you could set it up to record for 12 - 15 hours and over the whole tropical band, or any portion of the spectrum, and play back looking for the recorded DX in the files?

[Josh]

The MLA-30 uses a cheap video preamp among other defficiencies. It can work okay for casual listening, but I would suspect some type of issue like maybe a very high noise floor if seemingly performing anywhere near a decent active loop like a Wellbrook, W6LVP, DXE RF-PRO-1B, or even MFJ-1886.

Yeah well spotted.  It brings me the memories of those moments when I had the same thoughts on MLA-30 actually.   It was ok for general strong stations SWL BCLing, but it had never pulled the rare challenging DX such as the QRP AM stations from Brazil and all around South America, Africa or Pacific Ocean.  It definitley worked, and worked OK.  But it wasn't excellent DX puller for sure.   But then the youtube comparison between MLA-30 and WB 1530 seems to be giving ideas that those 2x antennas are in similar level.   Testings done during the day time for strong stations not too remote locations cannot really tell the clues actually.  He should have tried copy Radio Tarma from Peru, or some Middle and South American low powered AM stations at nights - and then the winner would be clearer?

Don't forget loops can be directional; if not oriented to favor the target region you're not going to see sigs you might otherwise. Also, festooning the coax with ferrets (ferrites) will help isolate the loop from the coax influence on gain and directionality. Of course if you lay it flat you get a horizontally polarised omnidirectional pattern. I am considering two loops, set to favor euros and asiatics. An azimuthal map based on your location might help in aiming antennae if you want to cover specific regions.

https://ns6t.net/azimuth/azimuth.html

[alpard]

The MLA-30 uses a cheap video preamp among other defficiencies. It can work okay for casual listening, but I would suspect some type of issue like maybe a very high noise floor if seemingly performing anywhere near a decent active loop like a Wellbrook, W6LVP, DXE RF-PRO-1B, or even MFJ-1886.

Yeah well spotted.  It brings me the memories of those moments when I had the same thoughts on MLA-30 actually.   It was ok for general strong stations SWL BCLing, but it had never pulled the rare challenging DX such as the QRP AM stations from Brazil and all around South America, Africa or Pacific Ocean.  It definitley worked, and worked OK.  But it wasn't excellent DX puller for sure.   But then the youtube comparison between MLA-30 and WB 1530 seems to be giving ideas that those 2x antennas are in similar level.   Testings done during the day time for strong stations not too remote locations cannot really tell the clues actually.  He should have tried copy Radio Tarma from Peru, or some Middle and South American low powered AM stations at nights - and then the winner would be clearer?

Don't forget loops can be directional; if not oriented to favor the target region you're not going to see sigs you might otherwise. Also, festooning the coax with ferrets (ferrites) will help isolate the loop from the coax influence on gain and directionality. Of course if you lay it flat you get a horizontally polarised omnidirectional pattern. I am considering two loops, set to favor euros and asiatics. An azimuthal map based on your location might help in aiming antennae if you want to cover specific regions.

https://ns6t.net/azimuth/azimuth.html

Valid point.

I always use 2x separate loops.  I used to have 2x MLA-30,  1x positioned East West, and the other North South.  They were into an antenna switch.  Changing over from one to the other gave huge difference in signal strength and readability, to the point where some signals totally disappear into nothing on 1x and 9+ good signal on the other.

Now I have no MLA-30, but have YouLoops.  I am doing the same thing with my YouLoops in the loft.  They definitely work better than just using 1x loop without rotator.  Ideally rotator mounted loop would be better, but the rotator can be very expensive and also cable hell into the house or the radio room.

I did testing with the MLA-30 on horizontal mounting, but reception quality was so poor, they were revert back to vertical position.
But sometimes just random length of wire with antenna tuner works better.  Best having a few different antennas and switching over for the best signal on the day for the frequency.

[Bergante]

I ordered a couple of Wellgood loops but I haven't tried it yet.

At least, reading the text, it's quite clear that the designer understands the working principle of the Wellbrook loop, which is (if I am not wrong!) a frequency dependant impedance match which maximises energy transfer from the loop to the amplifier.

https://www.george-smart.co.uk/projects/wellgood-loop/

I have a real Wellbrook ALA1530 and it is unbelievable. I have it installed on a balcony, close to several computers and nasty electronics inside the room, and it is like that interference does not exist.

[~SIGINT~]

I as well have a real Wellbrook and previously had seen that web site. I will be currious about your findings.

[alpard]

I was thinking of buying a real Wellbrook 1530 antenna before it closed down.  But then my Active Mini Whip and Random wire + ATU were doing good DXing LW MW and HF, so I didn't bother.  I used to have a real wellbrook 1530 loop before, and have been DXing with it for about year.  It was good in some part of the band, especially on LW and MW, but on HF, it was similar to much cheaper MLA30.  And there are plenty of ferrite rod, and loop antennas to build and test on LW and MW, which can be more fun.

Anyway, I compared my youtube SWL log copying Myanmar Radio 5985 kHz with the real Wellbrook 1530 loop a couple of year ago, and one I copied this spring a month or two ago with Random wire + ATU.   The random wire were copying 10 times better than the Wellbrook 1530, so I was glad I didn't throw away £300 for another Wellbrook 1530LN.  The old one was sold, when I went QRT, and saving every penny and selling most of my radio gear for funding to buy electric guitars 2 year ago, which I regretted at the time.  But now I feel random wire, Active Miniwhip and even cheap MLA30 will do the same job or even better job provided they are set up well for the environment of RX location.

[alpard]

And on the RF interference problems, if I may add, they might come from many other sources apart from the RX antennas themselves, such as AC power chords, noisy DC PSUs, feed lines, Radios themselves and surrounding environmental EMF sources and domestic appliances connected to AC mains running in the RX houses and properties, and of course the band condition at the RX time, time of days ... etc.  Not a simple issue at all.

Having said that, long wire and random wire antennas tend to be noisier than loop or Mini whips most times.  This is nothing to do with interference, but they just are good at picking up any noise in the surrounding space.  At times, however, LW and RW antennas can copy certain signals better than any other antennas depending on the condition of the band and propagation.  No antennas are perfect for every part of spectrum and band conditions.  Better having more different antennas installed, and try out and opting for the best one for the condition and signal at the time of RXing,  seems good strategy in DXing.

[Token]

Anyone notice the OIP2 and OIP3 numbers on that site?  I may just be a bit of a skeptic, but I don't think that thing is doing anything but sparking at the stated "90 dBm" (1 million Watts).

T!