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Topband: Buried radials

To: <topband@contesting.com>
Subject: Topband: Buried radials
From: k4kyv@hotmail.com (Donald Chester)
Date: Sun, 22 Sep 2002 09:30:54 +0000

>From: SteamBoilers@aol.com

>        If the only option is bury radials about three feet deep in a field
>that is plowed, is it worth doing for another quarter wave vertical.  ?

Alan,

I'm not sure how effective the radials would be if buried that deep.  They 
need to be on or just below the surface.  The purpose of the radial system 
is to shield the radiating vertical element from the lossy earth.  At 3 ft. 
down, you have quite a bit of lossy earth between the antenna and the ground 
plane.  Maybe it would be more practical to lay about 30 radials on top of 
the ground and reel them in every spring, for the season before the field is 
tilled.

I recall reading in a pre-WWII ARRL Antenna Handbook a recommendation that 
radials be buried about 2-3 ft. below the surface.  I am not sure if that 
was gross misinformation or a misprint, but I couldn't imagine burying wire 
that deep into the ground.

73, Don K4KYV

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