[HCARC] Inverted L

[SARA SANDSTROM]

Gary, 

You still are going to have to do some trenching.  While different sites for th e antenna on your land probably won't change the propagation, they will change the background noise level.  I think you want to be as far from your house and as far from power lines as you can get (not to mention your infamous electric fence) .  My antenna is about 200 feet from my house and over 300 feet from the nearest power line.  The wiring in your house will radiate just as well as the power lines.  In a former QTH I had a lot of noise from my wife's sewing machine, her Ott light, light dimmers, smoke alarms, televisions, etc.  The smoke alarms were also susceptible to 80 meter signla and would go off when I was on 80 meters.  New TV's seem to be less of a problem.  I've also had problems with computers once in a while.  Now, I hear my neighborselectric fence on 80 and 40 during the daytime when QRN is low.  Its over a quarter mile away and isn't very big, just enough to keep the cattle away from his house.  I think you really want to be at least a couple hundred feet away. 

I'm not sure how worthwhile it is to measure the ground conductivity.  I think that matters most to power people and not RF people.  The soil conductivity is unlikely ever to be good enough that a ground rod is an RF ground.   My understanding is that it is the capacitance between the antenna radial system and ground that really determines effectiv eness  and conductivity is a minor player.  In any event,  I don't think you can do anything but improve your radial system and I'm not sure knowing the local conductivity will help.  If you're doing propagation calculations that require ground parameters, those are tabulated and published.  Note that there is both a conductivity and a permittivity (dielectric constant) that you need. 

Have fun, 

Kerry