[Elecraft] OT- Radials for Vertical Antenna

[Terry Schieler]

I'll have to go on record as disagreeing with Matt, W6NIA's statement below.  Elevated radials *are* better than buried radials only *if* the vertical is not ground-mounted and the radials are tuned to resonance for each band.  

With ground-mounted verticals, the radials need not be tuned and do a better job if a large quantity of them are spread out on or below the ground.  I would not use elevated radials with a ground-mounted vertical.

Terry W0FM

-----Original Message-----
From: Matt Zilmer [mailto:mzilmer at verizon.net] 
Sent: Monday, July 01, 2013 12:33 PM
To: Randy Cook
Cc: elecraft at mailman.qth.net
Subject: Re: [Elecraft] OT- Radials for Vertical Antenna

Elevated radials are better than buried, but more radials are better than a few or none.  A good minimum number (for each band) would be 8.
Many studies on this have shown many more than 8 per band (like > 25) is much better and, of course, much harder and expensive to field.

I have a 33' vertical made of heavywall aluminum that has 7 radials for 40m and another 7 for 15m.  It works well enough, but generally I use it as an RX ANT for the K3's sub rx.  In my own case, the radials are buried for aesthetic reasons.  Plus, I don't want to need to duck down when mowing.  There is no ATU at the base of this vertical.

When using this antenna for RMS Winmor (for Navy-Marine Corps MARS) just below 40m, it had no trouble handling all states west of the Mississippi with 150W drive.

I would say that you should do what you can to maximize the radial count, even if it means changing your location plan.

73,
matt W6NIA