> Thanks to all who responded.
> I got a lot of comments and, also, helpful suggestions.
>
> But, I was reminded in the process that Ham Radio is a truly
> great hobby as several of my old friends chimed in with peer
> advice and help.
>
> Val, N4RJ
oVal has stirred up the pot of old glory days of doing crazy things,
with mixture of "grey (around the ears) line" reality of moving into
RF Gestapo restricted gulags and never dying RF fire in our shorts.
But not to despair, the acquired subconscious operating skills, might get
a bit rusty, but never lost, just need few hours of pileup refresher.
Some of us go through up and downs of activity due to real (married)
life realities and real estate or professional QRM/QRL but when opportunity
surfaces and we are not yet blind, deaf or stooopid we can still give some
hard time to young sparks.
It is so nice to hear OF in the contest pileups, knowing we never give up.
Even if crippled with QTH limitations, if given the chance to fire up from
rare or super location, we can still kick a butt or two. I was so delighted
to have a chance to fire up from the Aurora Capital of the Wolrd at TF4M
in CQ 160 CW, having fun to brave the clickses and rude CQers and still
to make respectable score for Eu. I will write article about the operation,
it was something to remember.
Back to Ground Rod vs. Radials. I was trying to see on Google what the
terrain, marshes situation is at N4RJ, it appears to be all around.
If the radials are already laid down, and ground rod in the ground,
then any improvement by adding more radials would pale in comparison
to the existing contribution from the salty ground around.
You were booming into TF4X!
As far as the current into the rod vs. radials, I would speculate that
rod's contribution to antenna performance is shunted by the radials
and if measured (ferrite clamp on probe or RF ammeter) it would
show negligent current. Again, if building new antenna on the salty
beach, one or two elevated radials are 99% good.
Just to underline what is most important to antenna efficiency -
it is roughly proportional to the area under the current distribution
curve along the radiator, see my article at
http://www.k3bu.us/loadingcoils.htm
Sorry about my previous Dis-formatted posting from my Firefox browser,
maybe time the reflectors can swallow HTML formatting?
73 Yuri K3BU.us
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UR RST IS ... ... ..9 QSB QSB - hw? BK
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