[Lowfer] Lowfer wet vs dry conditions

[JD]

To expound upon what William said, it's both a tuning and matching 
variation, because the antenna capacitance to ground changes with the 
effective area of the ground "capacitor plate", and the conductivity and 
dielectric coefficient of the soil vary with moisture content--in different 
ways for different types of soil--meaning that the soil component of R(loss) 
increases and decreases.

A more effective ground system is one way to reduce the variation.  I 
personally favor lots of radials at or just under the surface of the ground. 
When I added more of those in 2012, I reached a point where the ground loss 
no longer decreased significantly, but the capacitance swings with soil 
moisture diminished!  And when the Epsom salt I spread over the ground 
system worked its way into the soil, that helped further.

Ground rods at the ends of radials may or may not help in a given 
situation...they don't seem to do a lot for me, but some stations have found 
them beneficial.  Tying to other grounds (fences, the house electric system) 
may help, OR they can harm; more often the latter in my experience; but 
again, testing will be the only way to tell.  These other grounds can fool 
you--the antenna current may increase, but the radiated signal at a distance 
(where it counts) may actually decrease.

John