[Antennas] Radials vs salt water question!

[Charles Greene]

David and all,

I live on Narragansett Bay with various antennas within 50' of the 
water.  I had a 20 meter vertical on the sea wall with two elevated 
radials, the sea wall being 8' above the salt water at high tide.  The 
antenna experiences losses if the return path includes the lossy ground, 
just as it does anywhere, so there's no advantage there.  I measured the 
loss in the ground return on this antenna, and it was 30 watts in 100 
watts, which actually was pretty good for only two elevated radials. The 
advantages of being near sea water is that the losses in the reflection in 
the Fresnel zone are less, so the vertical angle of transmittion is much 
lower, like one or two degrees. Check ON4UN's "Low Band Dxing" chapter 9 
for the best treatment on verticals I have seen.  I have also operated 
using an insulated back stay on my sail boat.  It works pretty good, and I 
get good results using 40 watts.  I haven't figured on how to measure the 
ground loss.  Shortly I will be operating from a 60' ocean going fishing 
boat.  I haven't decided whether to use my K2 with its antenna tuner QRP or 
go QRO with my K2/100, as the boat has plenty of power.  Probably at first 
the K2, as we have to carry everything down to Charleston, SC for a trip 
back to New England.  For an antenna, I probably will just throw a wire 
over the horizontal section of the mast and bring it into the cabin.

At 12:08 AM 1/19/2004, David W Sher wrote:
>Salt water in general provides much better fishing than the average
>inland site, unless it is on a river or lake.
>
>Dave          W9LYA
>What wrought doG hath?
>
>On Sun, 18 Jan 2004 20:19:37 EST W3HKK@aol.com writes:
> > OK heres a question.....How would a ground plane with 4 radials about
> > 10 ft
> > up  at an inland site compare to a vertical over salt water?
> >
> > My gut says theyd be the same...but something else tells me salt
> > water  has a
> > profound effect beyond providing a good ground.
> >