Desktop MLA

Detailed technical information on this fascinating antenna is out now.
This innovative design was originally created by Mr. Hajime Nakajima / JR1OAO. Several implements were built and used successfully. This is not a one-off experimental design.
Here in Sourthern California, we participated in discussion, contributed soem work and documented the design to support his activities.
Last year, it was submitted to 2024 QST Antenna Design Competition and won an "Honorable Mention".
It did not win the top prize, as the QST Editorial Director mentioned

"Though the competition is for QST, the judges felt that your project (which one judge described as “gorgeous”) was beyond the ability of most QST builders, and therefore more appropriate for the QEX audience."

We were anxious to publish on the design, but since the copyright / distribution right for the original submission was held by ARRL, we refrained from publishing on our own here until now. But so far there is no indication that QEX will publish the article, I have re-written from scratch to describe the antenna, independent of our ARRL submission. Since the subject is the same, there will be overlap in the coverage. But considering when it should be published in QEX, it is expected to be edited down to a few pages, leaving a lot of details out.
This edition OTOH is fully contained about this innovative design, what it is, how it works, how to build it, along with simulation data and actual test and operation reports.

Please download these documents:

Now this is just a beginning of our project around this Desktop MLA.
We have been, and still in development of an intelligent tuner specialized for MLA, to automate adopting tuning of mutliple configurations. Early prototype is in the works, and we hope to announce it soon.

Please understand that none of these items mentioned here and the documents are commercially available to purchase. the main purpose of this publication is to share how to build and/or enhance the design, to encourage technical challenge by the wide ham community.
In case you are interested in joining this project, let us know. Write to us at mla@w6si.com