Fascinating. Now that I am using higher quality coax (RG8U) for my feed line, my 16” #planardisc antenna very much outperforms MLA-30+ on #rx down to 160m w/r/t SNR and noise floor. It’s wild, especially given that it isn’t really supposed to perform a great on #HF with that disk size.

Picked up 24” piece of scrap sheet steel from the dump. As soon as I find another 24 inch piece of sheet metal, going to build another planar disc see if it performs even better in HF.

#HamRadio #Antenna

Fun weekend eavesdropping on #80m sideband, picking up hams in Florida on #40m & Blue Ridge Mountain foothills in South Carolina, U.S., #15m, and CB / 10m (?). (I'm in Massachusetts).

While signal wasn't great by a long shot it was mostly intelligible. Still amazed that I can pick these up a #RTL-SDR 16" #planardisc pizza-pan #antenna in my EF-noisy office. Can't wait for the MLA-30 loop to arrive. I should probably be studying for my license instead of monitoring. 😂 #HamRadio #HF #RTLSDR

DIY #planardisc #antenna with 16" pizza pans. Connections are crimped. So far it has less gain than cheap 2m / 70cm adjustable dipole (when tuned) that came w/ my RTL-SDR. (Planar disc is on bottom of waterfall image, dipole on top.)

Don't know if soldering connections + using better coax + might improve gain or if this is about as much as I can expect from it. Goal was a wide band antenna so I don't have to swap out aerials on my dipole when scanning. #hamradio

DIY #planardisc #antenna with 16" pizza pans. Connections are crimped. So far it has less gain than cheap 2m / 70cm adjustable dipole (when tuned) that came w/ my RTL-SDR. (Planar disc is on bottom of waterfall image, dipole on top.)

Don't know if soldering connections + using better coax + might improve gain or if this is about as much as I can expect from it. Goal was a wide band antenna so I don't have to swap out aerials on my dipole when scanning. #hamradio