I am gathering parts for a large loop for MW & 75m AM window. I'll be
taking the loop across America at the end of September. I hope to
fatten up my MW & 75m logbooks. I hope to get up early every morning
and do about 5-6 hours driving a day. Camping out at night with my
Loop. I wish I could take my dog, but I'm flying back and I can't risk
problems a dog might cause on that type of a trip.

Loop has to be sturdy and fit in a 4'x4' space in my pickup. I'll
cobble up a case for it so it don't get smashed. So loop is going to be
near 4' on each side and I suppose enough turns to resonate a 450pf air
variable. The variable has two 20pf-450pf sections. I'm told this
variable came out of a Heath SB220 linear. I suppose I could wire the
sections in series for 10pf to 225pf.

So there is one question. How do I want to wire this thing up? More
inductance and less capacitance? I'm afraid I might have problems
tuning this thing if I wire them in parallel and i have a lot of Q. I
might turn the shaft a microdegree and have the peak blow right by the
station I'm going to tune.

Now I think I can just stick the radio Degen DE-1103 portable near the
loop and do ok. I shouldn't have to hardwire the thing into the radio,
right? Not sure how to couple in 75m. Now how critical is the loading
on the loop? Can I wind one turn and find a sweetspot in the way of
coupling for best signal? I understand the loading -vs- Q issues with
coupling.

Now does the secondary suffer from some kind of balancing issues? In
other words if I send the one turn secondary into a single ended preamp
will that be a problem? Should I do a double ended preamp with a pair
of Jfets? 3904s?

Does this thing need to tilt, or is just spin around enough?

Ok, I think that about covers it for now. I am leaving in a month, so
I don't have a lot of time for research and experimentation. I know
there are those here who know loops - I have read your posts.

73
NEO