Tag Archives: Tufteln 20M Delta Loop

Field Reports, News, Portable, POTA, QRP, SOTA, Videos

SOTA DX with a 20 Meter Delta Loop on beautiful Yonah Mountain!

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I’ve taken a wide variety of antennas on SOTA (Summits On The Air) activations, but one wire antenna I’ve always wanted to deploy is a simple vertical delta loop.

This summer, I mentioned to my friend Joshua (N5FY) that I planned to build a delta loop antenna and next thing I know, he built one. I suppose he’d been thinking about adding it to his line of portable wire antennas at Tufteln.

I was planning to build a 20M delta loop fed with twin lead, but Joshua’s choice is better for multi-band operating. His 20M delta loop features a 4:1 transformer so it can be fed with 50 Ohm coax like my RG-316 (which is also easier to pack than twin lead).

You might recall that I used his 20M delta loop antenna at Holmes Educational State Forest (see photo above) in early September. It worked a charm and wasn’t too difficult to deploy (loops are obviously more finicky than a one wire end-fed).

The great thing about this loop is it’s resonant on 20 and 10 meters, and it’s quite easy to tune on 17, 15, and 12 meters with pretty much any ATU.

Fast-forward to Saturday, October 14, 2023 when Joshua and I were participating in the W4G SOTA campout in north Georgia…

Yonah Mountain (W4G/NG-048)

It rained cats and dogs Friday evening into Saturday morning.

Fortunately, most of the rain stopped by the time I surfaced that morning.

Joshua and I ate a quick breakfast, grabbed our SOTA backpacks, then drove to the Yonah Mountain parking area/trailhead.

Last year, we also activated Yonah Mountain as well, but underestimated the hike and our timing. We ended up being a good hour or so late to our SOTA evening potluck. This time, we were keen to spend more time on Yonah Mountain and get back to the campsite in plenty of time to join everyone for dinner (and share exaggerated stories about our SOTA adventures).

Last year, we arrived at the trailhead and it was parked full. This year, even though we arrived in the morning and even though it was incredibly foggy/misty, it was still quite full!

Yonah Mountain is an incredibly popular destination.

Another fun fact about Yonah: it’s not really a beginner’s summit despite the fact it’s so popular with hikers and runners.

It offers up proper elevation change, gnarly trail portions, steep inclines, and about four miles of trail round trip. Although not an incredibly long hike, it’ll give you more of a workout than you might think first blush.

We reached the summit in due time and set up our stations about 30 meters apart.

The whole time, I was also monitoring the partial solar eclipse we were having that day.

I brought along some solar eclipse glasses and ended up sharing them with everyone on the summit. It worried me seeing so many young people staring at the sun with only their sun glasses or even–gasp!–with the naked eye. (I mean, weren’t they paying attention in science class–?) 🙂

At one point in the activation during the actual peak of the partial solar eclipse, I left the radio and did a little more sun-gazing. Continue reading SOTA DX with a 20 Meter Delta Loop on beautiful Yonah Mountain! →

Antennas, Field Reports, News, Portable, POTA, QRP, Videos

POTA with a 20 Meter Vertical Delta Loop and the Elecraft KX2!

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There’s a portable wire antenna design I’ve been wanting to put on the air for POTA and SOTA for what seems like ages: a 20 meter vertical loop.

I mentioned in a Ham Radio Workbench podcast episode a few months ago that I planned to build a field-portable delta loop antenna and that led to a mini discussion about configurations, feed points, height off the ground, etc. and how all of those factors can influence the characteristics and dynamics of the antenna.

Vertical loops are pretty fascinating and incredibly effective.

Delta loops are super easy to build (no more difficult than an EFHW) but this summer has been insanely busy for me and I simply hadn’t gotten around to it yet.

Then my good friend Joshua (N5FY) who runs tufteln.com sent me a prototype 20M delta loop in the mail. We’d been talking delta loops and he couldn’t help but build one. He asked that I take it to the field and put it on the air, then give him any feedback and notes I might have.

Joshua’s design incorporates a 4:1 transformer and was cut to be resonant on 20 meters. I’d actually planned to build one identical to this because the type of loops I’ve deployed at home have been fed with ladder/window line which isn’t as portable as something I could feed with RG-316.

Holmes Educational State Forest (K-4856)

On Friday, September 1, 2023, I grabbed the delta loop antenna and the KX2, then made my way to Holmes Educational State Forest.

I knew that Holmes wouldn’t be busy and that there were a number of options for spots to set up.

After a little scouting, I found a great site to set up the antenna.

I planned to set up this antenna as close as I could to an equilateral triangle with the apex up about 30 feet and the feedpoint in the middle of the base of the delta.

Deploying the antenna in this configuration meant that I only needed one line in a tree to hoist the apex of the delta and two lines to pull out the corners of the base.

I brought along some paracord with tent stakes to secure the base corners of the loop. In the end, though, I simply attached the paracord to trees instead of using the stakes.

I (somewhat reluctantly) made a video of the entire activation including the antenna deployment. I wanted to take my time deploying this antenna for the first time, so the antenna deployment section of the video is much longer than usual.

You absolutely cannot see the loop in this photo, but it’s there…I promise!

In the end though? It wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be. The last vertical delta loop I deployed was a 40 meter loop which is roughly double the size–in my head I was expecting the aperture to be larger than it was.

My arborist line and 12 oz weight hanging to provide a gentle tension to hold the apex of the loop up.

The 20 meter loop is actually pretty compact and almost as easy as setting up as an inverted vee.

With my loop properly deployed, it was time to hit the air! Continue reading POTA with a 20 Meter Vertical Delta Loop and the Elecraft KX2! →