[Lowfer] Beverage ground question

[Stan]

Hello JB,

Frozen ground is a poorer conductor than unfrozen ground.

Depending on the soil composition, most of the electrical conduction is in
the first few inches of soil where most of the organic matter is.

Your ground rods need to go down further into unfrozen ground for a 
lower ground resistance,
if that is possible with your soil conditions.

As an exercise measure your ground rod system resistance in the summer
and then compare to winter conditions.
A good system will have the same resistance in all seasons.

Possibly enhance the ground rod to earth resistance with coke breeze or 
bentonite.

What is the fence, wooden, chain link steel ???  hedgerow ??  barbed wire ??

Don't both ends of the beverage need a ground, one at the resistive 
termination at the far end
and another ground system at the coax matching network ?

I like the idea of the tree ground system.
Would be interesting to compare earth resistance in all 4 seasons.

Stan, W1LE



. B. Weazle McCreath wrote:
> Hello Lowfers,
>
> I've spent the last few weekends installing a "Beverage" antenna
> along a fence line that I share with my farmer neighbour to the
> east.  The fence runs south-west to north-east with a measured
> true heading of 50/230 degrees, ideal for Europe and UK off the
> front lobe and most of the central U.S. off the back.  I put up
> a single wire 1200 feet long, about 3 feet above ground, and no
> termination at the north-east end.  I used a 9:1 transformer at
> the feed point, with separate primary and secondary windings.
>
> The problem I had was lack of a good ground for the cold end
> of the antenna winding.  Driving ground rods into the gravel soil
> is no treat in the best of situations, but having to contend with
> about a foot of snow and frozen ground makes it even more of
> a labourious task.  After much effort I was finally able to drive
> in 3 rods that are 3 feet long and spaced 3 feet apart.  I ran a
> bonding wire between them and attached it to the transformer.
> Results where rather disappointing.
>
> Early today I had a thought of trying something different in an
> attempt to improve the grounding.  I ran a wire from the ground
> rods over to a coniferous tree about 10 feet from the feedpoint
> and connected it to the trunk just above ground level with a 2
> inch stainless steel screw.  Tests with my MFJ antenna analyser
> showed a pretty flat SWR across the lowest range that it tunes.
> This was much better than previous measurements had been,
> so I headed into the shack to see if it "hears".
>
> I was pleasantly surprised to find that signals now where coming
> in pretty well on 80, 160, and the NDB bands.  My conclusion is
> that the tree roots are providing a better RF ground than the 3
> driven rods were.  Has anyone here ever heard of or tried this
> method of grounding?  A quick Google search didn't turn up
> much of anything on the subject.
>
> 73, J.B., VE3EAR - VE3WZL
> Solar and wind powered
> Lowfer " EAR"  188.830
> EN93dr
>
> http://www.hurontel.on.ca/~weazle
>
>
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