House block loop antenna for 160m

At the urging of old mate Ross, VK1UN, I've run a wire loop antenna right around the suburban block we live on and I've just had a contact on 160m. I bought a roll of 100m of figure 8 electrical flex:



It runs at fence height on three sides of the block (well short of 160m in length though):



But at the back I run it up a tall tree:



It's not quite long enough for a full wave on 160, so it turns out to be resonant at 2.25MHz:



Happily, my antenna tuner is able to match it on 160m and tonight I had a nice contact with Ian, VK3XN who I figure it about 800km from me:



160 faded so we switched to 80m where I have an excellent dipole high above the house. The loop was about 2 S points worse than my current dipole, but still readable.

So, a simple loop antenna, not very high off the ground turns out to be a simple way to get on low bands in a suburban setting. Count me impressed.

Thanks Ross, and Ian for the contact.Running WSPR it appears that I'm being heard around Australia running 5W (note that VK1UN is mis-reporting me as being on 10m)



There's quite a group on 160m WSPR on a Saturday night in Australia:



Special thanks to VK6DZ who is hearing me 3,000km away.



And here's what I'm hearing: