[Elecraft] OT - SteppIR Vertical and Elecraft Products

Sat May 16 16:33:29 EDT 2009

Dave, I agree. The reason I tried the safety ground was that it was there. 
The reason I mentioned it here was as an example of what not to do. BTW I 
later ran the inverted L with just one of the elevated radials with 
excellent results. There is definitely a point at which a ground radial 
system crosses from being poorer than one elevated radial (= half dipole) to 
being better, as radials are added. I suggest it is a good idea to know 
which side of that point one is at.

73,
Erik K7TV

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Gilbert" <xdavid at cis-broadband.com>
To: "Erik N Basilier" <ebasilier at cox.net>
Cc: "David Wilburn" <dave.wilburn at verizon.net>; "Elecraft Discussion List" 
<elecraft at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Saturday, May 16, 2009 1:23 PM
Subject: Re: [Elecraft] OT - SteppIR Vertical and Elecraft Products

>
> That's a really bad comparison.  A good safety ground has no relationship 
> whatsoever to a good radial field.  They perform different functions, and 
> while a good radial field might also provide some safety benefits as a 
> distributed path for lightning protection, the reverse is rarely true. 
> There is also no assured correlation between a ground/radial system that 
> gives a decent impedance match and one that gives decent signal 
> performance.  A little web searching will bring up several references on 
> both points.
>
> It is true, though, that a buried radial system requires more than just "a 
> few" radials to give decent results.  I don't want to get into the 
> elevated versus buried radial argument since both have their place and 
> (properly implemented) both will work well, but if space permits the 
> installation of enough sufficiently long buried radials they have some 
> definite advantages.
>
> 73,
> Dave   AB7E
>
>
> Erik N Basilier wrote:
>> Personally I can testify that elevated radials can be very very much 
>> better than a poor ground level "ground". Years ago I had put up inverted 
>> L's for 80 and 160. I first tried feeding them against my existing safety 
>> ground system which consists of a number of ground rods; one  the feed 
>> point, another at the electrical meter, a couple at my tower (an 
>> important tie-in to my station ground still to be completed). These are 
>> tied together with 4" wide buried copper ribbon, branches of which also 
>> extend to some far-away parts of the lot. Although I achieved a good 
>> impedance match, the received signal strength was incredibly poor. I then 
>> added two elevated 1/4 wave radials for each band, suspended under the 
>> eaves of the 1-story house, trees, and short poles attached to the fence. 
>> The impedance match was still very good, and the antennas worked very 
>> well indeed. I believe I would have had the same results with verticals. 
>> I also recall trying just a few 1/4 wave buried radials for a vertical 
>> way back in my youth, with poor results. I am now a big fan of elevated 
>> radials. If you decide to go with ground level radials, I suggest you 
>> perform a sanity check after you install them: Temporarily string up one 
>> or two 1/4 wave radials at a height of 10 ft or so, sloping one end down 
>> to the feed point. Compare the results from the temporary radial(s) with 
>> results from your radials on the ground. If the elevated radials work 
>> best, consider either making them permanent, or improving your other 
>> radial system by adding more radials, and possibly making them shorter.
>>
>> 73,
>> Erik K7TV
>>
>>
>>> In the near term I want to try out (experiment with) a 33' vertical.
>>> At Frostfest this year I picked up 32' or so of fiberglass mast.  I am
>>> going to tape a wire to this that is 34' long, twist the mast to wrap
>>> the slack up, much like a widely spaced helical.
>>>
>>> When setup at home, it would (eventually) have a good ground field
>>> (would start out with 16 radials and work my way up to 60'ish). The
>>> coax run when used at the house would be less than 40'.
>>>
>>> When setup for portable operation (connected to mount I have for my
>>> trailer hitch, to use when parked) it would have 4 radials of a length
>>> not yet determined and the coax run would be less than 20'.
>>>
>>>
>>
>> .......
>>
>>
>>
>>> Current plans are for ground mounting.  I understand that as radials
>>> go, more is better. The radials would be black insulated wire on, or
>>> within 1" of the surface of the ground. They would not be cut to 33'
>>> or less if the space was not available.
>>>
>>> I am curious on the experience of the group with a similar vertical,
>>> tuner at the rig, and short coax run.
>>>
>>
>>
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> 