As John Bryant has mentioned, our 7-page
joint article describing the development, construction and performance of the
innovative E100 Slider loopstick has just been uploaded on DXer.Ca.
The Slider loopstick uses a movable coil which
slides along a 7.5" Amidon ferrite bar, providing the ability to peak the
loopstick on each DX station's own frequency. This loopstick tuning
function, similar to that of a preselector, boosts the E100's wideband
sensitivity up to an astonishing level, far out of proportion to the antenna's
size. A Slider-modified E100 has this outstanding sensitivity on all
frequencies from 520-1710 kHz, without the sensitivity drop-off typical of other
digital RF front end designs. It has been tested against the RF-2200,
ICF-S5W and other legendary portables, and has been found competitive (or
superior) to them all.
As a very cost-effective modification, the Slider
loopstick can be constructed for under $40, and the project
itself should be routine even for beginners-- it is simply the
winding of a movable coil on a 7.5" ferrite bar, with two simple soldering
connections to replace the mediocre E100 stock loopstick. How does it
perform? Well, in combination with a Murata IF filter modification, a
7.5" Slider loopstick has enabled my tiny E100 to receive 50 TP's and DU's this
season at Grayland, and at my home in Puyallup, Washington. I have a stock
ICF-2010, and have checked its performance against this Slider E100 during
some of these TP receptions-- often finding the stock 2010 with
only heterodynes, when the modified E100 had solid TP audio. Even
without the IF filter modification, the Slider E100 can typically receive about
80% of the TP's audible on the Slider + IF filter E100. As such, it
truly provides a very economic performance boost for any E100 owner
interested in legendary weak-signal DX capability.
John and I both hope that many E100 owners will
take the opportunity to build one of these innovative Slider loopsticks,
and discover for themselves the amazing DXing performance boost it
provides.
