[Antennas] Radial Wires VS a wire or screen mesh

[Terry Conboy]

This is probably fine as far as it goes.  The problem is that with only 
4 rolls of chicken wire, there is still a lot of soil between the 
conductive mesh.  The idea of using a large number of wire radials is to 
provide a path for the RF displacement current back to the base of the 
antenna that only involves a very short distance for current flowing in 
the poorly conductive soil until it reaches a good conductor.

A few years ago, I heard a technical talk at a hamfest regarding an 
installation of a vertical in a constrained space.  He didn't have room 
to spread out the radials from a vertical mounted near the fence at the 
back edge of his property, so he had a guy with a backhoe dig a trench 
about three feet wide along the fence.  Then he buried several dozen 
radials in the trench in each direction from the base of the vertical.  
This sounds pretty silly, but not one person in the audience questioned 
his approach (including me, the perpetual cynic, who was left with my 
jaw hanging open too long to comment).  He could have gotten comparable 
performance with a couple of rolls of chicken wire (at least until it 
rusted away).

73, Terry N6RY

On 2009-11-14 6:24 AM, K2RS wrote:
> I was talking about this topic with a friend last week. He said that one 
> of the big-gun contesters here in New England uses rolls of chicken wire 
> fencing as the radial system for his 160-meter vertical. Chicken wire is 
> available in a number of mesh sizes, but I don't know what particular 
> size mesh this contest station is using.
>
> The chicken wire is connected to ground rods at the base of the antenna 
> and then rolled out on the ground during contests. When not in use, it's 
> rolled up to the base of the vertical. I don't know how long each 
> section of chicken wire is, but for 160 each roll is probably over 100 
> feet long. I believe there are four rolls arranged equidistant around 
> the vertical. The key with something like this, I would think, is making 
> sure the chicken wire has a low-resistance connection to more than one 
> ground rod at the base of the antenna to insure the efficiency of the 
> radial system.
>
> Jack   K2RS
>