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Reviews For: Palstar LA30

Category: Antennas: HF: Verticals; Wire; Loop

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Review Summary For : Palstar LA30
Reviews: 1MSRP: 395.95
Description:
The new Palstar LA30 Ferrite Loopstick Antenna is designed for the avid
LF, MW, and Tropical Band SW listener. The LA30 is a rotating loopstick
antenna using active electronics to give high selectivity & gain. The tunable
pre-selector ensures best possible weak signal reception and interference
rejection.

The LA30 comes standard with a Medium wave Loopstick that covers 410
kHz to 2050 kHz. Two optional loopsticks are available: a Long wave
version that covers 110 kHz to 550 kHz, and a Tropical Band version that
covers 1480 kHz to 7500 kHz.

A hi-Q pre-selector eliminates interference from powerful nearby stations. A
+15 dB pre-amplifier pulls in weak stations, while a 15 dB attenuator
prevents overload when listening to strong stations. Rear switch can select
either wall transformer input or a 9V internal AA battery pack.
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.palstar.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=9007500
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
0015
KQ4O Rating: 2018-07-29
Best Loopstick Antenna Ever Made Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I bought this unit when I moved into a second (top) floor apartment and had no way to set up an outdoor antenna, even a random wire wasn't free from noise in any position I tried. I figured that maybe I could steer the loopstick away from any noise sources. Got all three loopsticks for coverage from around 120KHz to about 7800 kHz. Wasn't a cheap setup but it was very effective.

My receivers at the time were a Kenwood R-300 and Icom R70. This is how I discovered that the R-300 is a killer NDB hunter, very sensitive but only single conversion on the longwave band. The tuned LA30 compensates for that with no MW broadcast statIons appearing where they don't belong. I'm in southwest Florida and pulled in beacons from higher power ones in Honduras and Puerto Rico to low power NDBs from north Florida and Georgia during the summer, not exactly NDB season around here. Later I got hold of a home brew longwave loopstick from an experimenter who used a massive amount of ferrite and attached a 1/4" plug which popped right into the LA30 which added 5 S-points on average to NDBs that registered 1 with the stock Palstar stick.

With the R70 I used the stock HF loopstick and was enjoying bandscanning, finding quite a few South American locals and even Radio Sonder Grense from South Africa. Discovered utility signals with it and of course hams on the 80 and 40 meter bands. I wanted higher frequency coverage so doing a Google search led me to BAZ Spezialantennen from Germany. Picked up a 1/4" loopstick with a range of about 3050 to 14400 kHz (usable a bit more at either end). The old Palomar HF Loop would plug right into the LA30 and work as well, if you can find one.

After buying a Cubic receiver which tunes down to 10 kHz naturally I wanted to see what would come in so back to BAZ where I picked up a VLF loopstick covering 15 to 70 kHz. Works well with the LA30.

I mentioned Palomar earlier, the homebrew experimenter supplied me with a LA-1 loopstick amplifier that he used with the super ferrite. It definitely has more gain and a smaller footprint but the tuning is not nearly as precise as the Palstar unit, and its definitely not as well constructed. I also bought an older AOR LA320 because it also accepts all these 1/4" sticks, but the tuning is even touchier than the Palomar (although its not a bad unit and very portable).

The LA30 uses 8 AA batteries as well as AC so with a receiver that also can run from batteries and has an SO239 it can be taken into the field for DXpeditions. This is a very verstile antenna system and I never regretted spending the money on it.