[160m] Beverage ground rods

[Tom Rauch]

> I have seen several thoughts on grounding...  Misek in his
Beverage Antenna
> handbook says that at high fequuencies a nearly lossless
ground is
> important.  He even goes so far as to run a ground wire
between the two
> grounds at each end of the antenna.  At low frequencies,
he suggests that
> the ground be inefficient so that a tilt angle is created
on the incoming
> signal, thus creating a larger forward or reverse vector
force in the wire.

Bad idea for many reasons. First, the very last thing we
want is conductive ground under the antenna. Beverages quit
working as the ground gets better under the antenna. They
won't work at all over a very good counterpoise.

Second, the wire laying on the earth is made very lossy by
the earth. It doesn't do what he claims at all. It does not
provide a low resistance path for currents. It only can make
things worse, not better.

You can measure the ground resistance and monitor any change
with something like a MFJ259B.

73 Tom