[Elecraft] On ground - in ground radials

[Jim Brown]

On 1/16/2022 10:21 AM, jerry wrote:
> Have you actually tried one?  Mine seems to work.  

Define "work." N6BT famously said many years ago that everything "works" 
by quickly working all continents on a light bulb.

I was ready to put
> out radials
> also, but doesn't seem to be necessary.

The earth is a big resistor. A connection to it does NOT make a transmit 
antenna work better -- indeed, using earth as a return adds a resistor 
in series with the antenna that burns TX power, making our signal 
weaker! Radials serve as both a counterpoise -- a low resistance return 
for antenna current -- AND to shield the antenna's field from the lossy 
earth beneath it, also minimizing the loss of TX power.

There's a conceptual discussion of this in slides for a talk I've done 
at Pacificon, Visalia, and to several large clubs.

http://k9yc.com/160MPacificon.pdf

73, Jim K9YC