Hello All,

Many people (including myself) have questioned the performance of the
Wellbrook ALA 330S Active Loop Antenna on MW.

I purchased mine last March based on good reviews in PASSPORT TO WORLD
BAND RADIO 2004 (I was quite desperate at the time, due to local
restrictions on outdoor SW antennas [none allowed] and EXTREME local
electrical noise). Frankly, as I rarely DX on the MW band, I was
concerned only with SW performance.

I have my antenna mounted in my attic atop a Radio Shack rotator.

According to the 2005 PASSPORT, the MW performance has been improved on
the latest production units.

This must have included mine.

It was good enough to pick up the Ukraine on 1431 kHz last night
(coming in clearly as WSNW, 5 kW, Newark, NJ, about 100 miles from my
location, faded out. The fades would last about one or two minutes,
enough to clearly hear the Russian language broadcast which, according
to the WRTH 2005, runs 1200[!] kW).

I was also able to hear various Canadian and Cuban stations
loud-and-clear.

I only spent about an hour and a half listening to the MW (0330 - 0500
UTC) but it was quite interesting. This was the first time, since I
have owned it, that I have tried MW DXing with it (my receiver is an
AOR AR7030 Plus).

In any event, it shows me that the Wellbrook ALA 330S is an adequate
antenna for those who wish to do some casual (or maybe more) MW DXing.
Best,

Joe

The test of MW performance is daytime reception; at night you might
hear anything with even so-so sensitivity. All signals are locals,
almost, when they're faded in. The problem is getting rid of them,
at night, mostly.

I find my ALA1530's are less sensitive in S/N than the McKay Dymek
DA100E whips, more or less uniformly; but if you have an electrical
noise problem, that can be otherwise. My location is pretty quiet.

The built-in nulls in the loops though comes in very handy. You can
permanently get rid of the most annoying local station, leaving
phasing to deal other problems.
--
Ron Hardin


On the internet, nobody knows you're a jerk.

Hello Ron,

I am not advocating the Wellbrook ALA 330S as a medium wave antenna;
many people on this and other sites have questioned whether it is
usable on the MWs. PASSPORT and some other references have said that
the '330S is quite "dead" on the medium waves. At least at night, this
is not so. If someone is interested in this antenna, at least they
should know that, though it certainly is not a first choice, it is
adequate for some MW listening, at least in my experience. (As I have
stated here and other places, I do not often DX on the MWs.)

Other people, such as yourself, who do MW DX, are more qualified than I
am to comment on the '330S's relative MW performance.

I must mention, however, that I could not hear the Ukrainian station on
my Grundig Satellit 800 with the C. Crane (Justice) AM antenna; too
much local noise.

But I did hear it clearly on my AOR AR7030 Plus with the Wellbrook Loop
when the Newark, NJ station faded out.

Best,

Joe

I also now have the ALA 330S. It is impressive. I'm sure the 1530 is
better on MW, but the 330S isn't bad. Like Joe, there's little I want
to listen to on MW anyway.

Steve

My overly elaborate antenna farm was constructed a bit at a time
entirely to hear Imus from this or that distant affiliate (5:30-10am)
so is MW oriented, and concerned with daytime performance mostly,
though getting rid of Cubans and a couple ``locals'' on 660
conveniently in opposite directions N and S competing with WFAN
in NYC was a nighttime problem too.

At night, there's no real question of MW performance except for
nulling stuff away, which can be very difficult except at the low
end of the band because direction of arrival varies by more than
the size of a deep null (nulls are bigger at the low end).

So anyway it has a couple ALA 1530's in the array, which null N-S
unless the wind has blown them around. They're not as sensitive
as the Dymek McKay DA100E whips but do have that convenient null
built in, and at night the sensitivity simply doesn't matter much.
All signals are strong then.
--
Ron Hardin


On the internet, nobody knows you're a jerk.

In article . com,
"Joe Analssandrini" wrote:

Hello Ron,

I am not advocating the Wellbrook ALA 330S as a medium wave antenna;
many people on this and other sites have questioned whether it is
usable on the MWs. PASSPORT and some other references have said that
the '330S is quite "dead" on the medium waves. At least at night, this
is not so. If someone is interested in this antenna, at least they
should know that, though it certainly is not a first choice, it is
adequate for some MW listening, at least in my experience. (As I have
stated here and other places, I do not often DX on the MWs.)

Other people, such as yourself, who do MW DX, are more qualified than I
am to comment on the '330S's relative MW performance.

I must mention, however, that I could not hear the Ukrainian station on
my Grundig Satellit 800 with the C. Crane (Justice) AM antenna; too
much local noise.

But I did hear it clearly on my AOR AR7030 Plus with the Wellbrook Loop
when the Newark, NJ station faded out.

This antenna design is a good one for medium wave or BCB. Local
electrical noise generally goes up the lower in frequency you try to
receive on. The allowed electrical compliance curves for most items
increases at lower frequencies. The small loop is sensitive to magnetic
fields where the locally generated noise tends to be electric fields.
This insensitivity to local voltage noise fields will result in better
signal to noise than a voltage field sensitive antenna.

As long as the loop amplifier response is flat down to 100KHz then the
antenna should work just fine for BCB.

http://www.wellbrook.uk.com/ALA330S.html

--
Telamon
Ventura, California