I have a calibrated E Field antenna (Procomm AAC-1) with a quoted antenna-factor of 0.15V into 50 ohms when placed in a field of 1V/m,

 

This is mounted in the centre of a car roof and fed via a bulkhead connector to a calibrated measuring receiver inside the vehicle, which we can assume is a Faraday cage at LF,  S0 my question is :    How is the effective height of the antenna changed?    It was 0.15m - the specification said so - but this would have been over an infinite groundplane.  Do I regard the body of the car as being the other half of a dipole?  In which case, at 1.5m it adds 20dB to the received signal and makes a mockery of calibrated measurement of the E-Field value..

 

Is it worth persuing this route, or better to stick to untuned loops for calibrated E-Field measurements at LF/MF?

 

Andy
www.g4jnt.com