What are your thoughts on out door MLA, would they out perform, a full wave loop antenna I get about 3 dbi over a dipole with one of my loops, and my 2 loops together get me 6 dbi, in a directional pattern. I have no experience with MLA, some people post they are great some say they are not so good. I am always looking for new things to play with, even did a loop array for my tv set, and it is working amazingly well. Yes making antennas is a serious hobby here for the last year or so.
I wanted an indoor solution to our "no external antenna"
HOA-NAZI regime. Even with crappy band conditions if I hear them, they usually hear me. I've used this on 10,11, 20, and 40 meters using 4-20 watts
(4w when using my FT-817 and 15/20 when using my TS-2000).
I don't have a dipole or other base antenna to compare it with and only know what I've read online when it comes to that type of A/B comparison. I did do a "2nd floor-indoor / outside-of-garage" test and didn't notice a big difference.
As well, I compared the MLA vs. my mobile antenna and it was about 1 or 2 S-Units less with the MLA. As you've probably read, if you move around a band much, prepare for a lot of turning the V Cap. This has never really been a sore point with me. Higher up in frequency (10/11m) it's a larger bandwidth so usually I don't have to mess with the v cap much at all.
Would I go with an MLA again? Given my circumstances -
Yep.
The mantra I try to follow is:
"The best antenna is the one you have to use" (or something like that).