SDRplay Community Forum

I have been using my Wellbrook Loop ALA1530S+ for many years now for HF reception (mainly HFDL and GMDSS utilities). It was quite successful, however I have recently had the chance to use the MegaDipol MD300DX antenna from Bonito - https://www.bonito.net/hamradio/en/mega ... ve-dipole/ and it has been great.

I have mounted it by suspending from the top of a 7m fibreglass pole, and connected it to the RX with 30m of RG6 coax. So far I am receiving up to 3000 HFDL messages in a 12 hour period, far exceeding the Wellbrook in the same period. I use it with my RSP2 and SDRUno with 5 VRX feeding 5 copies of PC-HFDL via Virtual Audio Cable

So far this is looking like becoming my HF antenna of choice for a small suburban block.

Mike

Hi Mike

Interesting observations. A few questions
Are you in a quiet rf environment or typically suburban - with all the hash?
From your description, are you using it as a vertical dipole?
How does it perform down on MW and the beacons below that?

regards
Noel

Hi Noel,

No, this is not a quiet RF environment, it is a typically suburban one with a fair bit of hash. Bonito do recommend that it works better in a quiet environment, but what antenna does not
I am using it as a vertical dipole but have not tried it on beacons etc as there are not many which can actually be heard from the Sydney area. I will try it on MW soon, as said above I am mainly interested in utilities which are mainly above 10MHz.

Mike

Thanks Mike
I would be interested to hear your views on its performance down at MW and below when you get round to giving it a spin there.
Noel.

Hi.
As this antenna works on the E-field its performance will be bad for people like me in a crowded RFI area. I get noise from power line adaptors, ADSL, SMPS, and all the other sources. I've used all sorts of antennas longs wires EWE antenna and active dipole. Only magnetic loops work here and virtually nothing else.