Capacitance and impedance matching on loop antennas in VLF radio astronomy

With a VLF receiving loop, you usually do not need conventional 50-ohm impedance matching.

At VLF (say 10-30 kHz), your loop is electrically tiny. Its impedance is dominated by the inductance of the loop plus the resistance of the wire:

Z = R + j(2 x pi x f x L)

For your approximately 1.34 m loop using about 150 m of 22 SWG wire, the inductance could be several mH depending on the winding geometry.

For example, if the inductance were 5 mH at 20 kHz:

XL = 2 x pi x 20,000 x 0.005

XL = approximately 628 ohms

TUNING THE LOOP

A capacitor can be used to cancel the inductive reactance of the loop.

The resonant frequency is:

f = 1 / (2 x pi x sqrt(L x C))

At resonance:

XL = XC

The inductive and capacitive reactances cancel, leaving mainly the resistance of the loop.

For example, with:

L = 5 mH f = 20 kHz

the required capacitor would be approximately:

C = 1.27 nF

Therefore a capacitor decade box covering the nF range would be very useful for experimenting with the loop.

Note that 10 uF would be far too large to resonate a several-mH loop at 20 kHz.

RECOMMENDED ARRANGEMENT

Loop | | Tuning capacitor | | High impedance preamplifier | | Sound card / ADC | | Spectrum Lab

You generally do NOT need:

Loop -> 50-ohm matching network -> receiver

A high-input-impedance, low-noise preamplifier is usually preferable because a low impedance such as 50 ohms can heavily load the loop and reduce its Q and received signal.

By Admin

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