ferrite antenna impedence matching

Question

I am using a WWVB receiver for a project I am working on. The ferrite antenna that the receiver came with has terrible gain and I want to make one that is several times larger.

I know how to make a loopstick antenna resonant for a frequency I want...

What I am concerned about is if the receiver IC has an input impedance that the antenna needs to match. I would assume the inputs just feed into an opamp or a transistor and it doesn't matter.

I remember in my Antenna class constantly talking about impedance matching but I'm pretty sure that was in regards to matching to a coax feed line.

Thanks

Answer 1

WWVB transmits at 60 kHz and thats barely above audio in the whole realm of radio so impedance matching to reduce VSWR or prevent reflections is of no consequence. Rule of thumb is that if a feeder length approaches one-tenth the wavelength then start thinking about it. 60 kHz has a wavelength of 5 km so don't bother thinking about it.

In fact if you looked at the characteristic impedance of a coax line at 60 kHz it would be "complex" and not resistive but, like I said it doesn't matter.