[Lowfer] Earth

[Eric KD5UWL]

Hi,

Sometime back I reported that adding (admittedly short) radials actually 
*lowered* my antenna current.  I now have some more news to report on 
this.

Now that I'm running at 2200m with more power, I found it necessary to 
ground my loading coil.  Antenna current jumped markedly when I did that.

I've fashioned a ring from #4 Cu around the PVC base of my vertical.  This 
ring is attached to two 8' 5/8" Cu plated ground rods driven into the 
ground on either side of the mast.  The ring is also attached to a cold 
water spiggot.

To the ring I've begun to add #12 Cu stranded radials.  So far, I've only 
run two as it's a very time-consuming process to do the way I'm doing it.  
I'm actually running the wire close to the ground under the grass, weaving 
it under bermuda runners, etc.  The finished product are radials that are 
almost impossible to see which my XYL likes very much.

I will continue to run these until I run out of wire (will be a while -- I 
have a few hundred feet of the #12 stranded, and about 2000' of #14 
stranded well-logging wire) or until I quit noting improvement -- I'll let 
you know the results.

But so far, adding the radials is definitely improving antenna current.

73
Eric