| KA9MIC |
Rating:  |
2025-01-14 | |
| Beyond impressed! |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
I can't say enough about this antenna. I have the Alpha Antenna Emcomm MagLoop 100 watt 15-40M, 2M, and 440MHz. I mainly bought this antenna due to a planned trip out of state and I wanted something I could put on the balcony and operate from. To my surprise, after being told I would have a balcony at the hotel I was booked at, there was only a window. It was on the third floor so my expectation was not high for success. I was floored by the receive, the lack of noise from an area that should have been an issue was outstanding. I was able to make numerous CW and SSB contacts on 20m and 40m and was able to pull in weak contacts by slight adjustments to the antenna position. On this trip I was using a Xiegu g90 using 20w SSB and 5w CW.
Setup was very easy, I was up and running in under 10 minutes. Tuning was not near as bad as I have seen posted about Mag Loop Antennas. The size and weight of the antenna in the included bag is very light and easy to travel with.
Another benefit of this antenna is that I live in an HOA and have limited options for antennas. I have also been using Alpha Antenna's HOA Buster gutter system. I have been very pleased with it and have made contacts with over 100 DX countries from it. But I have it attached to a gutter facing north and needed something to getter better coverage from the other areas. I have used the MagLoop all over my house from different windows with great results and can't wait to operate from my deck when the weather allows. I have even picked up a second MagLoop to keep in my car for impromptu opportunities to work QRP at a park, or even in a parking lot when my better half is shopping. If you are looking for something versatile, compact, and light weight with great performance, you can't go wrong with this antenna. Additionally you won't find better support and response from Steve. I look forward to finding more ways I can use the antenna. |
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| KR4K |
Rating: |
2023-12-13 | |
| Nice, compact, efficient |
Time Owned: 6 to 12 months. |
| Have the 10-80 meter version with the 6M, 2M, 70cm add-on element. Used for first time at RV Park in the Texas Hill Country. Mounted loop atop camera tripod, connected to IC-705. Set up took about 5 minutes, for the 40-10m single loop plus the 6m/2m/70cm feed. Tuning was straight forward, using IC-705 display. Tuning to a band’s FT-8 segment takes about a minute. Receive was excellent, once you tuned in the frequency. You can almost get the best tune by watching the signals peak on the IC-705’s spectrum scope. Noticed the Alpha loop has a relatively quiet receive environment when others around me using portable verticals had some high noise levels. Made several FT8 contacts using 10W in the early evening, including path to NY. Compared Alpha loop to my DX Engineering TW 5-Band portable antenna, and performance was pretty much the same. Really like the loop’s compact size, light weight, easy transport in bag, and quiet receive. |
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| KB4P |
Rating: |
2023-11-26 | |
| Great Antenna Great Support |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
| Just got to use it tonight. KX3 in my backyard on a battery running 10Watts with 1.3 SWR. The bands were in bad shape. Near sunset, no luck on 20. 40 was pretty noisey but turning the antenna greatly mitigated much of the band noise. Maybe Cuba? Found my way to 30m. Replied to a CQ frm Ontario. Got to him with a 339! Oh, me, I am in Sarasota, Florida! Not bad for the first time out with the antenna! Great pre and post sales support. Great company, amazing antenna! |
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| AD7WO |
Rating: |
2023-08-26 | |
| Absolutely the best condo/portable antenna available |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
| I was shocked out how well this antenna worked. I used it from 80m-10m band and worked stations from South Korea to Bulgaria. The size makes it easy to just carry out to the balcony tune it and I'm in business in less than 10-15 minutes. The support is absolutely phenomenal. |
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| KQ4CSL |
Rating: |
2023-08-16 | |
| An excellent antenna! |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
| It is extremely difficult to find any antenna that is both multi-band and portable. Mag loops are really the only use case here, however they usually can't eat any power. This, someone, manages to do up to 100w with extremely low SWR. Because of my setups and HOA, I can't really use anything else so mag loops are the way to go, and this is by far the best option for this and when I travel. Very much appreciate this product and pairs well with the ICOM 705 and a 100w amp! |
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| W4FID |
Rating: |
2023-07-31 | |
| Updated -- very good experience |
Time Owned: 3 to 6 months. |
UPDATED AGAIN July 2023 ---- I have been operating portable from near Chattanooga. Using an IC-705 mostly on FT8 and the Alpha loop on the Alpha tripod in the house. Near a window -- but the house is aluminum sided and there is a big aluminum car port just outside the room where the station is. It's in the woods with a mountain behind the back yard and a whole range of them to the east of me. The house is not at a high elevation or in the clear. Not ideal. Been working most everyone I call in North and Central America and the Caribbean. Up and down both coasts and across the northern boarder and the gulf and southwest and all over the middle of the country. Also some "plain vanilla" European and South American DX. Have also worked New Caledonia, the southwest coast of Australia which is half way around from here, Madeira Island, the Azores and Canary Islands, 5,000 miles down into southern South America, and a couple less common Carabeen islands. Full disclosure here -- I tired numerous times to work Easter Island, Angola, and Malia but never got thru a crack in the pile up for them. PSK Reporter showed that I had a moderate signal at them -- they should have been workable -- but no QSO is no QSO. Still it took less than 10 minutes to get the antenna and its bag out of the car, into the house, and set up so what I am working is very nice and happening every day.
UPDATED spring 2023-- I tried the antenna on the tripod in my front yard for a few days. Used my IC-705 with its internal battery (5 watts). Numerous QSOs (about 100 total) on all bands 40 thru 10 meters were easy and lots of fun. Worked lots of DX and all over North America including up and down the west coast and as far northeast as you can go in Newfoundland, and several POTA stations. It hears well and I worked a decent percentage of the stations I called (good for QRP with a portable antenna). Some of the "better" DX was Tasmania (already confirmed), A VK6 on the southwest coast of Australia --half was around the world from Florida (already confirmed), Sardinia (already confirmed), Bulgaria, Madeira Island, the Canary Islands, the Isle of Man, Dodecanese, Thessalonica (already confirmed), Malta, Jersey (already confirmed). Who wouldn't enjoy those with 5 watts and an antenna on the lawn on a tripod? Two of the days it was gusty winds -- up to 25 MPH. I had no concerns to guy or weight the tripod -- it sat still solidly. The Alpha loop and it s rugged tripod will replace hamstick dipoles, end fed wires, poles, ropes, et al, and another manufacturer's loop when I travel. As easy as it is to leave it on the tripod and just move it from the porch or garage to the lawn and extend the tripod legs I can see it getting use from home with my IC-7300 with higher power than the 705 runs on CW and SSB. The HOA will always be a factor to contend with. As will a good working antenna for portable use. But the Alpha loop is a good answer to lots of those issues.
ORIGINAL REVIEW April 2023-- I have experience with MLAs for many years. But the Alpha with remote tune seemed like it will be better than anything I ever had so I ordered one. It came in a couple weeks. Seems like it is REALLY well made. Rugged. Precision. Steve (the owner) is very responsive -- returns e-mail or calls within a few hours. My impression is quality company -- quality products -- quality owner/staff. I will be giving this a trial with my IC-705 on the porch and the Alpha in the yard in the next few days. Seems very likely it will be THE antenna I travel with (look at QRZ W4FID/p) going forward. I'll update this when I have a few dozen QSOs and likely will be giving Steve some pix and copies of a few pages of my log when I see him at Hamvention next month. |
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| KE8JLM |
Rating: |
2023-04-24 | |
| Hearing people and making contacts |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
| I've owned this for years. I've had no problems with it, set up is easy, it's small enough and travels well, it's also well built. More importantly it works well for me. Great support if you have any questions. |
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| KJ4AXB |
Rating: |
2023-04-19 | |
| Best portable antenna! |
Time Owned: 6 to 12 months. |
I bought this at the 2022 Dayton Hamvention and I have loved it! I had the full buddipole for years and was never able to make it work. I was able to set this antenna up in 20 minutes the first time and tune it. I am now able to put it and down in less than 6 minutes. I also bought the 6m and 80m expansions but I have not used them.
However, with the 10-40 section of the antenna I have successfully worked 6k+ QSOs in the past 11 months. I have worked everything from the next state over all the way to the opposite side of the globe with this little antenna.
I have my setup shown on my QRZ page and showing what I have made with this antenna.
The only con I have found over the past year is that I have to manually tune this antenna which means you have to get up and retune if you want to change bands. |
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| F4JKH |
Rating: |
2023-02-01 | |
| Absolutely great! Put it on the balcony and off you go! |
Time Owned: 6 to 12 months. |
Last year, I bought the Alpha Antenna 100 Watt Magnetic Loop with 6m and 80m accessories.
After trying it out as SWL and getting licenced as HAM here in France in April 2022, the real success story began.
I am operating it from my balcony mostly in nominal configuration, hence in 40m through 10m, and tune it by hand while looking at my SWR meter in my shack.
I have specialised in FT8 and FT4 operations, participate also in WSPR.
I like to operate in 30m, 20m, 17m and 12m as FT8 and FT4 frequencies are very close without the need to retune.
It is on the balcony as I am living in an apartment flat building. I have had no chance to use an Installation on the roof yet.
Means, it is relatively small as an HF antenna, easy to mount and pretty much unrecognisable as antenna unless you know what it really is.
My experience shows that I reach other stations with a difference of 10 – 12 dB weaker most of the times. Means, I hear them e.g. at 0 dB, they report back -10 dB.
Most of the times, I obtain an SWR of 1:1.3 or lower (even down to 1:1).
However, when lucky and the conditions are just great, I am even better in réception than their signal.
I have also much better reports and performance in the higher frequency bands (10m) than in the lower ones.
Luckily, the 10m band became very active in Mid January 2023.
Powerwise, I can use the antenna up to 40-50 Watts easily in all bands. When getting higher, the SWR flips to 1:3 or 1:4 suddenly.
In 40m, I have been able to push it up to 100W power for the 12 seconds of FT8 transmissions.
To share my success in HAM radio with you:
From April 2022 up to today, I have completed 1949 QSOs, 1417 confirmed in QRZ or LotW.
Confirmed DXCC Count: 116
98% of the QSOs have been done with the MagLoop 100W Alpha Antenna.
Have a look in my QRZ Account, it contains also a picture of the antenna.
I have 7 QRZ diplomas confirmed to-date, some even with single band endorsements.
Latest QSO was with ZL/OE1HLB, Mr Hans Lambrecht, this morning. He is on a DX expedition trip in New Zealand.
I worked him on 15 meters in FT8 with 40 Watts TX power. Distance: 18957 km or 11782 miles from my QTH in Rambouillet, France (JN08VP).
Isn’t that incredible?
As information:
My radio is a YAESU FTDX10, connected to a DELL Alienware high performance PC for full deep decoding and USB CAT/PTT control plus Audio transfer.
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| LNXAUTHOR |
Rating: |
2022-01-09 | |
| modified support mast - now great! |
Time Owned: 3 to 6 months. |
bought a used Alpha MFLA (magnetic field loop antenna) last summer... the package included the tripod, tuner box, support mast, coupler, 1/4 x 20 to 3/8 x 24 coupling nut, extra clips, and loop coax, along with txcvr coax
pros: solid construction, quality connectors, no-limit tuning (no stop limits on the tuner capacitor)
cons: non-standard tripod mount, however and to be fair, a converter nut was included and are available from Alpha; the biggest con however, was the support mast, which is a single 27-28" piece of Easton 7075 tubing - a real pain in the you-know-what if you want to pack the loop package down into a smaller bag!
my solution: 1) cut the tubing/mast in half and square the ends; (2) cut the heads off two 3/8 x 24 stainless nuts to acquire two 3/8 x 25 threaded pieces; (3) use JB Weld to affix the threaded pieces in the end of each tube (they slide in w/a perfect fit); and finally (4) use a coupler nut to use when combining the mast
the result is a very compact 100W Alpha MFLA!
performance has been great... i previously used a CHA F-LOOP original and had trouble with getting a desirable SWR - the Alpha box works great, and i have made consistent contact while /P using 10W with my IC-705
these MFLAs are quite expensive; recent price increases are pushing them into the stratosphere, especially with parts shortages, shipping problems and inflation - i recommend building your own, buying used loops, or taking advantage of manufacturer special deals ... i now have four different portable loop systems and enjoy each one, but this loop is the only one which supports 100W out of the box |
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