An online expert recently reported:
I tried to make an antenna loop for longwave with cat 5 and after it did no good I realized the twisted wires canceled each other out.
Or did they really cancel?
Parallel connection
I constructed a loop of one Cat 5 pair and measured its inductance when both wires are bonded at the ends.
The conductors are 0.5mm diameter and spaced 0.9mm. To estimate the inductance we use the geometric mean radius (GMR) as the equivalent radius of the pair. GMR=(0.5*0.9)^0.5=0.67, diameter=1.34mm. So let’s calculate the inductance of a single turn circular loop of 0.8m perimeter and round conductor of 1.34mm diameter.
The estimate above is 850nH.
Above is the measurement, the screen is not readable, but it is 852nH, very close to the estimated 850nH. Continue reading Inductance of a loop of CAT5 pair