[PVRCNC] Optimum # radials article

[Kent Winrich]

You can play with burying hundreds of feet of wire or you can go elevated:
http://www.nottltd.com/ElevatedRadialSystem.pdf

As I mentioned in my presentation, it is most important to cover an area
close in to the antenna.  There is not a big addition in coverage with the
longer wires.  It is better (if you go buried) to have MORE then LONGER
radials.  I suggested a 20' square of an interwoven 'grid" with about 1 - 2'
squares to create a "screen" .  Elevate it if you can!

In this article a number of issues are skipped over (or I read to fast,
which is quite possible).

Dont you find it interesting that they are suggesting a LOWER number of
radials in poor soil?  That is because of ground loss.... something the
elevated system is supposed to lower.

Another issues is that they talk about the NUMBER of radials versus the area
covered.  So if I have 500' of wire, they are still suggesting that ALL
radials be 1/4 wavelength.  Unfortunately they didnt try shorter, but more
numerous radials.

BTW in our area, I always assume that we have poor (heh or NO) ground
conductivity.

Here is a discussion and data about elevated versus standard ground system
in Ham Radio Frequencies:
http://www.arising.com.au/people/Holland/Ralph/shortvert.htm

Here you will see that 3 -4 elevated wires can out perform 32 buried wires!

Kent Winrich
K9EZ/4
b0zo #143. www.ab0zo.com
Somewheres near Fuquay
Ex Cheesehead
Packer Fan and Stock holder!

On Wed, Nov 12, 2008 at 8:35 AM, Brian Alsop <alsopb at nc.rr.com> wrote:

> Guys,
>
> This makes interesting reading.
>
> http://www.ncjweb.com/k3lcmaxgainradials.pdf
>
> It determines the optimum length and number of radials (40/80/160M) at
> given amounts of available wire.
> The results are plotted and tabulated for various ground conductivity
> values.
>
> Given the data one may conclude that on 160M 500' of radial wires (with
> optimum radial lengths) is within 1.5 db of 32000' of wire also with optimum
> radial length!   The cost to obtain the extra 1.5 db is astronomical.
>
> It gives hope to those who previously thought they couldn't put up a LF
> vertical because of ground system costs.
>
> 73 de Brian/K3KO
> _______________________________________________
> PVRCNC mailing list
> PVRCNC at mailman.qth.net
> http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/pvrcnc
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.qth.net/pipermail/pvrcnc/attachments/20081112/000326e3/attachment-0001.htm