2 Meter Halo Antenna

Project Background & Goals
There are two previous versions of my loop antenna that were built before the antenna you see now. The original goal was to have an antenna that I could use for 2 meter SSB. Since I like to tinker and build things I thought building an antenna would be a good idea. I wanted an antenna that was simple, horizontally polarized and omni directional. I knew that some people have had good luck using horizontally polarized loop antennas so I thought I would try to make one myself. I knew that the antenna would not have the gain in one direction that would be obtained using a beam antenna, but that was not the goal. The goal was to be able to hear local stations in their various dispersed locations without rotating a beam. If you have similar goals this type of antenna might suit your needs. If you are looking for the ultimate long range contact then a beam with a rotor is still the better option.

I looked around on the web and found a couple of different designs that helped me get started. After building two different versions of the loop I came up with something that worked. It was a copper loop antenna with a capacitive fed gamma match. I had to rebuild the gamma match several times to get something that worked. I liked the way the antenna worked so I built a second one and stacked them for some additional gain using a phasing harness with impedance matching. They seemed to work pretty well but the harness and antennas were pretty flimsy. I had to disassemble the system several times due to a house move and a home construction project. I found that each time I had to touch the set up, something would go wrong. That is why I decided to try to build something …..Read Full Article

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