6m Delta Loop

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For this project, we will be building a 6m Delta Loop. In the past, I have not had much interest in 6m. Most of my time is spent 15-80m. Several friends of mine are always talking about it being the “Magic Band”, so I figured I would get an antenna up.

I wanted to do something different than the standard ground plane or dipole. After looking around on the web I decided to go with a Delta Loop. My antenna is based off a design found on the site CQHQ. I found the way the matching section was set up interesting. Instead of just attaching a piece of 75 ohm cable, it is wound on a form made from PVC pipe. The lengths were not recalculated from the original post. If you would like to calculate your own frequency, I have linked an online calculator at the bottom of the post.

The matching section is a good place to start.

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Tin the braid of the coax to make it easier to terminate.
It is easier to do this before wound on the form.

Attach a terminal strip and connect the coax. Once connected, wind coax around pvc.

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Cut 20′ of wire for the loop. I used 14 awg THHN.

I had Macarr Labs print me some end caps and a center connector. As a bonus the plastic is glow in the dark. There is no real reason for this other than it was already in the printer. Even though this antenna is a prototype, Stainless Steel screws were used.

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Surprisingly the red wire I used blended with the trees and made it difficult to see in pictures. During tuning, I will attempt to get a better picture.

Only one quick test was done on the 6m Delta Loop. Tuning will be required. The antenna was resonant around 48 mhz. This does not come as a surprise. Typically, I cut my antenna a little long to make it lower than the desired frequency. This insures that adding wire to the loop will not be necessary while tuning. In a future post we will tune and test this antenna.