Amazing Cheap Multiband Delta-Loop Horizontal Antenna 

Over the past ten years, I built three 40m horizontal delta loops at various times. One was installed entirely on my roof. The other two were installed in trees on different properties. The one on my roof was more or less 30ft high. The other two were 20 to 25 ft high. I achieved resonance with about 143ft of antenna wire. I fed the roof-mounted loop with coax, and the other two with 300 ohm window line, which i later changed to coax after substantial testing where I found very little difference except on 12, 10, and 6m, where the 130ft run of window line had measurably less loss (compared to 125 ft of RGBX). At the time, my main interests were in 40, 20, 17, and 15m, and the coax was easier to work with. When I used coax, I fed the loops with homemade 4:1 baluns installed at the feedpoint. When I used window line, I ran it straight to the tuner, which has a built-in 4:1 balun. As for lightning protection, I used quick disconnect connectors outside my shack and disconnected the feedline when I wasn't operating. I also shorted and grounded the leads. I depended on the tuner's ground connection to drain static when I was operating. Perfomance-wise, the loop is the best receiving antenna I ever used, and I have used a lot. It was even a great receive antenna on 80m, although I could not use it for transmitting on bands lower than 60m. The signal-to-noise ratio was always outstanding. And, the loops worked well for transmitting, particularly on 40, 20, and 15m. For most bands, I didn't need a tuner, but I did use one on 60, 17 and 12m. I found very little difference in performance with loops mounted at 20ft vs 30ft, although the feedpoint impedance changed a bit. I compared the performance of my last loop to my current non-resonant end-fed inverted-V (for 6 though 80m) and discovered that the end-fed generally outperformed the loop on transmit (by about 3 to 6 dB on 40 and 20m), but the loop was hugely superior on receive. At the extreme, I sometimes could not hear some stations whatsoever on the end-fed, but they were clear at s4 or s5 on the loop. As long as space permits, I will likely always have a 40m horizontal delta loop in my antenna arsenal. I have often used the loop for receiving and the end-fed for transmitting. That configuration has netted me nearly 200 unique DX entities. I'm a believer.

In SP there is very popular delta loop antenna designed by SP7LA (SK), it works without ATU on 80-10m (with WARC). Balun 1:4, arms lenght (starting from balun) 23.87m, 35.1 and 23.87m. It's big, but works well even 5m above ground. So with 82m of wire you have almost all HF bands. I think every ham operator in SP built and used that antenna in his career. For 40-10m band there is modified version with coil near to balun (arms lenght 13.1m, 15.2m, 13.1m).

If only my back garden wasn't the size of a pocket handkerchief,hi...thanks for yet another great video Cal.

I helped a ham friend years ago make a 20m square loop but only 1/4 wave length high. Easy to do with 4x4 posts and PVC strapped to the posts. Fed point was direct...yes no balun...at one corner. He had great results with it. It was experimental and the wind brought it down after about a month. He claimed quieter than inverted V dipoles with similar gain. I experimented in my backyard on the US CB band 11m and ended up with a 1.5:1 swr...it got in the way mowing the yard so I eventually took it down! I think the term used back then for these horizontal loops was 'sky loops'.

Hi, Cal. Yes! This was my first antenna build and it was quite similar to what you presented except that I fed it with ladder-line from a Versa Tuner using this obscure little thing called a PT-340 "Tuner-Tuner" made by Palomar to set the best match on each band. I worked the world on all HF bands with that setup quite effectively with 100W and had great fun with it. Yes, it's very quiet receive, too. Highly recommend that folks give it a try if they have the real estate for it.

I really like the idea and if it ever stops raining I'm going to try to build one and see what I get.

Hi Cal, looking forward to this as this will be my first antenna build. I will be going for my foundation license in Australia on the weekend. And can I say a big thank you for doing all the information sessions you’ve been a big help. And by the end of the year, I’ll be buying one of your gigantic 12.4 meter DX commander. So this antenna build will put me in good stead for when I have to put the DX commander together. THANK YOU once again for the time you put into everything you do.

I have a DX commander signature but I wanted a loop to play with, so I managed to put a 160 meter loop at about 5 meters above ground around my property. I only had a 1:1 balun on hand so I hooked up to that and then 20 feet of RG213 into the shack. I started playing around on 28 MHz and first contact was Tokyo from my QTH in Texas. Gotta love a loop antenna.

Love my horizontal delta loop, feed with ladder line and works great.

Excellent I have one of these thanks for your sharing your expertise and experience. I learn so much!!

Thanks Great video. I like your MMANA video discussion explanation Callum.

AWESOME Callum... I started out with a 40meter loop, now I have an 80m full wave horizontal delta loop. I love the antenna, it is about 10 - 12 meters A.L.G. It is a monster. Great to see you experimenting with one of these on video. I know you have built the megaloop (160m full wave) as we did for our club field day.

chain link fence top rail is 21' long...........fairly cheap and very stout............readily available here, some comes with swaged ends which will allow you to plug in more sections or cut the 21' length in half and have two 10' sections which may be easier to handle.........cheers from New England to old England 73, Mike K1FNX near Boston

hi cal. i worked you a few years back with a square 40m loop 8ft off the ground at my old qth. used hardened copper wire 1.5mm ( winding wire for motors extra) with an off set feed point and a 2.5 to 1 balun. it worked brilliantly on 10 watts on 80m 27.6.2020 2313hrs loved it. your video has inspired me to do it again! just to convince the missus now 🤔

I use a Horizontal Deltaloop for 40m. 10m high. I put 300 Ohm twinlead for the feeder to my shack. And put a 4:1 balun from twinlead to coax connected to my auto-tuner. I trim the Twinlead to adjust SWR good as the ATU working all band. Not perfect installation, maybe some loss. But for Urban installation, Deltaloop are more quiet than dipole. Extra: I put 2 inductors, one in serie, one in parallel, "home made adjusted value (error and try)" for a "not to high" SWR (tunable for ATU) on 80m

Nice coverage Cal! Horizontal loops are the bomb! I have had 2 in my history, and they are quiet and tune all over the place. 73 - KF6IF

My antenna ive been using since 1978

I use a 160m horizontal loop and absolutely love it. All bands! Super quiet.

Looks like a fun project to try.

Good loop antennas take some beating hope it works well for you Callum.

Great ant on tx and quiet on rx, nice one cal. Ive used em for years on rx, and my verts on tx.

I have a 320 meter ( roughly two wave lengths for topband) sloping loop 80' down to 70' right next to the sea over very wet sloping ground and a burn fed with 6" open wire feeder into a home made Collins type tuner basically its two inductors (18 uH) each in parallel with caps (600pF) at each end across the inductors it does quite well , for the higher hf bands i have to switch out one of the caps as the minimum capacitance is a bit to high its one of the best antennas iv ever built but needs quite heavy hardware and wire, consideration needs to be taken with the halyards and free running hanging points so far its held up in 65+ mph winds without a problem

One of my qth antennas is a 40m delta loop, up at around 7m. One point is slightly lower due to not having the required height but have not noticed any adverse effects. Built it from 1mm stainless electic fencing wire wit a 2:1 balun and I've worked Europe on a 20W G90 and the loop. Tunes beautifully and the Rx on it is really good (i do live in a rural area so that helps with lower noise floors). Enjoy the build!

Thanks for the video Calum. This is a great antenna. I have one set up in my yard. It's about 8m up, 4:1 balun fed in the corner with cnt240 coax. I have an Icom 7300 and the internal tuner happily gets a match on 40,20,15,10 and 6m. I like your idea of the paracord and loop of extra wire so you can trim easily to get best match. Mine has several joins in it lol.

I love this Callum! The best from LB1NH 🙂

I built it, hanged around 10m above ground and partiality above house metal roof. I had to use 2:1 transformer rather than 4:1. 20m and 15m bands are in perfect resonance, 40m is too short so finally I have around 2:1 SWR in phone area. 10m is a little too long but generally in side phone section, but minimum SWR is around 1,9:1. In general, 40m delta loop is perfect for 20m and 15m without tuner, but 40m and 10m needs tuner.

Callus, that is the antenna I use. Mine is 160m antenna 50-60ft up. I love it. I've been using it over 10 years and get great signal reports, hears excellent. 160-6m tunes with internal tunner. Only bad part of this antenna is it's a static absorber, so when not in use I keep it unplugged from my station. Other than that, it kicks butt. I placed 5th place for 4 land in a CQ SSB contest against the rest of all and 2nd for the FL so party against all the big stations with big power. 100 watts and a wire. 73s from US N4RRR

This is weird because I was just researching how to build one of these. Thanks for the info!

Love my 80m skyloop! Direct fed with 75ohm catv commscope coax. Its my pileup buster.

Love my 275ft/ 2:1 Delta Loop.....like you mentioned it. Low Noise Level on the RX-Side and effective TX Signal. Happy Weekend, Lord Callum. 73 de Uncle Günter

I have 82 meter version of it and the feed point is on the east side, so it’s point west at a height of 9M ❤️❤️❤️

Thanks for the tips. I have been wanting to build one to compliment my DX Commander Classic. 73, N1XXU

Hi Callum, been building and using horizonal loops for years. It's a GREAT antenna and it's a cheap option, resilient in storms and the gain is greater on bands above it's resonant frequency in the direction away from the feed point. The shape isn't so important either (theoretically the more space inside the loop the better the gain, so a circle would be best but anything works). I've tried coax feed to a balun and even ladder line but I always come back to using a Q-section of 75 ohm coax (1/4 wave long in 40m for a 40m loop). It is still multi-band and I use it often on 20m to work into Australia or on 10m to work into North America. 40m in winter into New Zealand. Great, great antenna. 73 Ed DD5LP

BRILLIANT!!! 👍💥📡

I have made a few loops with the DX-50. My strain reliefe is paracord outer cover, and glue lined shrink tubing leaving a 12 inch tail. That way I don't need to redo my strain relief, but once it is tuned it is fairly poratble. Pole supports are 3 Classic poles one fixed to my vehicle, and 2 on portable stands. At about 25 ft I make a loop from a zip tie and using a second zip tie I attach the first loop to the Classic pole as a wire guide/support. Remember to extend all the segments of the Classic pole to keep some water out. I attatch a 4:1 BALUN to the Classic pole on the vehicle. A short run of coax to the radio and I can be operating in about 20 minutes (I move slow ) . I guess I should make a video.

Made a 40 meter. Great for 100 -800 miles. Quiet but mine was around a tree about thirty odd feet up. Irregular shape for certain. Running qrp and loads of fun.

Bit of a coincidence as i made a similar antenna based on previous experience back in Kent. It was a quiet antenna , less noise. . Decided on a 4 to 1 balum wound on a ferrite Rod. 50m wire in the air. It loads on all bands via ATU. But it's resonant on 30m . Results not bad.. Still testing. Only just found your video.. everyone tells me it's a cloud burner being horizontal. It's 23 ft high. Qrm is Far better. A EFHW was a disaster for qrm at my qth. Going to make an alteration to the feed point for logistic reason as i want to install a homemade vertical antenna as well. The loop is not so hot on 10m. But 40m seems incredible. Although today station i could hear well at Hackgreen were not even audible on my setup. Also no longer can work the Sunday 60m net as all stations are weaker.. Then other stations are good. Radiation pattern is the problem. Still it's low noise. May be able to raise the height at one end.

Good video your the reason I got back in to radio again more in to ham now 👍

My favourite antenna. Have an 80m version. Biggest problem I have is Douglas fir limbs coming down in windstorms and talking the loop with them.

Hi cal. This is same like my h5anxk4 multi band loop. I put it on the web back in 1996. Then in qst. The use of 4:1 balun and multi band properties were noted back.then. I really wish folks can give credit to us who discovered this. Thank you.

I’ve built these all ways. Square , tri, circle. The inverted delta with 2 ends up work best. In a vertical plane of course. Place to feedpoint opposite of where you want to beam. So to eu I put the feedpoint on the western side of the loop. Note there is more noise if the feedpoint is on the vertical element. My favorite antenna for 40m. Some people love them for 80 and 160 but their dx is lacking compared to a higher dipole or 4sq verticals. Wish I had a few 100 ft towers for a proper dx loop.

Built a 80m loop as my first antenna. 7m to 10m high, don't really need the 4:1 on 80m, just not high enough, could drop with switching in a 2:1 on 80m. 4:1 is perfect for 40m onwards. Feeding now with ladder line to reduce all losses...big 4:1 in the shack into the back of the tuner. Runs 1kw all day long.

Hi Cal, just built a skyloop 40m-10m ,in almost a square shape, height is around 45ft, its simply a DXBuster on higher bands, BTW im feeding it with homebrew Ladder Line.

Been using that type antenna since 1978

Looking forward to the next installment on this one. I've been looking at building a delta loop for 40 for some time now, but, most of the research I've done suggests it more like 100 ohm at the feed point and a 2:1 transformer is what's needed rather than a 4:1. But as you said the 4:1 sort of covers all the different impedances across all bands. I guess none of this stuff is set in stone and a lot depends on the height, but would be interested in your views on this Cal. 73

I had great success using a 4:9 balun to match into a rectangular 33 foot high 40m loop on all bands 40-10m.

Thanks for the video.

I had fun with a vertical 40M delta loop( would be interesting to see the plot H vers V pol), by the way it was replaced with the dx commander my hops kept growing up it I used 2x 8M scaffold poles to hold it up 4:1 balun and an mfj tuner and my TS440s

Putting all this excellent HAM information aside, what compressor is that? The musicality on this thing is phenomenal. It sounds lovely! (I asked in fear of getting a "that VST" answer :P )

Hi Cal..Great video and have to agree great antenna ..Have you ever played with a V Beam as just about to have a play with a V Beam at about 8mts agl with each leg about 24Mts fed with 450 Ohm ladder line to a 4:1 just outside the shack, Looks interesting on MMANA.

IF you want a more directional loop, could you extent two of the arms and reduce the the "back" loop without harming the system. Also, does America have a different effect of the bands

Just out of curiosity Cal, do you still play in a band? sadly I had to retire from semi pro due to ill health (disability) after playing Bass, Double Bass and Keyboards for nearly 65 years.

Oh. Thanks for the interesting vid.

I am planning on building an 80m loop, but I want to feed it with ladder line and have to 4:1 in the shack.

A Horizontal Delta loop is Vertically polarized , has no gain and is Omni - directional , not bad if that is what you need . It is much Better than a piece of wet string . ( you don't have to keep wetting it : )

“It’s all about the bananas!”

Hi Callum! - Great video. - My own plan is to form a very irregularly shaped loop using sparce trees at variying heights with the feed point being one of the highest. Length will be around 160m - Feed point wil be ~45 feet - other heights around the loop will vary wildly between 25 and 35 feet. I will be feeding it with open wire transmission line into a balanced tuner. Will I still need a 4:1 balun? - Or will the balanced tuner (MFJ 974B) be able to compensate for any mismatches?

Hi Cal. Run a 160m Loop here at 400w at 12m high. Thinking of doubling the size to 320m and to see how it works. Have plenty of room to run it down the paddock. VK3DJC

Very nice

I’m a new viewer and also a massive nube when it comes to RF antennas! But, do I interpret your drawing of the triangle correctly as the antenna being a closed loop, with the two ends of the triangle connected to the balun? Wouldn’t that create a short? Does that work? I thought that antennas need to have an open circuit? Again, I most probably may have misunderstood the concept of antennas completely… Hence the ”nube” question? Does the antenna cable consist of two leaders, whereas the leader and the braid are fed separately? Many thanks for all your excellent videos!❤️🇸🇪

Hi Cal. Love your vids. What would be the effect of hanging it vertically? I ask because I have used an antenna called a "Super Loop" which was made by a firm that is no longer in business. Physically it looks much like what you describe. It's a full wave 80M triangle fed at the bottom thru what the designer calls a "tuning unit". However, half way across the top, the wire is split at an insulator and a 32 foot twin lead tuning stub hangs down shorted across the bottom end of the stub. I'm not an antenna theory guy, but it always beats reference dipoles on every band from 80 to 10 with SWR's in the 2:1 range. Perhaps its a bunch of bi-squares. PS: the top of my triangle is at 20M above ground which puts the "tuning unit" and the coax feed point about 10 meters up. Your thoughts?

Hi Cal. I have done some testing here on a 160m square, but i gonna try it as a delta this weekend! I use 4:1 and a 1:1 in series. Give a update

Hi Cal: I have a 1:1 Balun, and 250ft (76 M) of 18 gauge wire - would it make sense to try to make this "triangle" horizontal antenna ?

On the vertical side, opposite the feed point, can we attach it to a DX Commander pole instead of a bannister?

Are you really going to hang it in these trees? I would see a video how you manage :D Im experimenting with the verticals in a forest because i dont want to thread the wires trought the roots... I want to try 80m loop by SP7LA, but probably i dont have enough space to put 81 m of wire...

Hi Cal. Thinking of knocking one up for 10m only and using it this coming weekend for 10 on 10... Any good ?? Also what length of wire would you aim for ? Cheers David.

Hey Cal .. interesting video. But I need your help. My roof I small in space and I can't raise a 7m mast. Max I can go is 5 meters from roof of my house . What antenna I could try build as multiband from 40m to 10m bands, using 49:1 unun or 1:1 balun ? Jimmy SY1DAL

Hi Callum, why a 4:1 balun over a 2.5:1 balun? I use a 2.5:1 and with my 40m loop I get 40,20,17,15,12 and 10m all below 3:1 swr. I also did something odd and have an 80m (tuned to upper portion) on the same balun sort of like a fan dipole theory, arranged where if u look down from above it it would look like a lopsided bowtie with than balun as the knot. I wonder how the radiation is with this setup? Maybe you could run that thru that software

So is 3 sided better than 4 sided using the same length wire?

I use a 40 meter vertical loop, quiet and kinda gainy. 😂

Cool! Would this also work for 2 meters?

Any update on how to build this delta loop?

Paracord, Or some other non conductive cord, paracord is tough

First!

What does 5% off the horizon mean. Question is how do I achieve this? I know its a dumb question! But i don't know how to make this happen.

great cant wait to the build well explained de mi0tlg william