YouLoop | NanoVNA Sweep | R+jX | 500KHz-30MHz

[RobRich]

A huge YMMV applies here, as I am just playing around with a recently acquired NanoVNA-H 4" model. I am still poking through the config, settings, etc. Antenna was placed horizontally flat on a carpeted floor for simplicity's sake.

[ChrisSmolinski]

Fairly similar to what I have seen elsewhere for the YouLoop? Your setup seems to be working    I picked up a new version nanoVNA recently as well, but have not had a chance to do much with it.  I need to write some more user-friendly interface software for it.

[RobRich]

Thanks for the verification.

Speaking of NanoVNA apps, I need to get around to trying the webapp as it looks more user-friendly for my admittedly rather basic usage.

[alpard]

I don't own a NanoVna, but last week, the YouLoop I ordered weeks ago from China arrived, and it was hung in the attic.
It works great on HF. Very quiet, yet pulls the weak signals well.  Haven't tried on other bands than the HF yet.

[RobRich]

I get the idea of recommending a high dynamic range receiver for the YouLoop, but I wanted a different approach for using the antenna with my portables.

Getting to the point, the mismatch is horrid with my Grundig G3. The result is a need for ridiculous volume levels to discern signals. Yeah, not fun.

I was using a cheap eBay preamp with an antennuator to deal with the mismatch, but that also likely was putting a significant dent in the resulting SNR. Also it was something else to power while portable.

I could have tried to rolling a transformer to optimize the band(s) of interest, but that did not sound like fun, either. So taking the slacker route, I grabbed my currently unused MFJ-16010 for a try.

The 16010 is a simple L-network tuner for longwires. That said it actually works quite nicely with the YouLoop, especially since we are not transmitting and needing ideal matching. It is easy enough to simply swap the connections if needing to invert the match range, too.

Listening to 75m in a test tonight went from weak signals at high volume to much easier copies at moderate volume. Yes the absolute SNR is essentially the same, of course, but the little G3 portable has usable signal transfer now. Yay!

[alpard]

Now connected the YouLoop to my Uniden scanner, and it works great on VHF.