Well, we both used a piece of rebar but I couldnt find a good tub at the transfer station/town dump. I made mine from scrap angle iron and my trusty Miller MIG welder. Its survived outdoors now since
Around this area small gauge Teflon wire at electronics surplus shops sells for less than PVC insulated as its of almost no value to recyclers. Partial to full reels are available. Carl KM1H -- Origi
Jerry Sevick, W2FMI, has an interesting comment about the "120" number in his book, "The Short Vertical Antenna and Ground Radial." At the end of the first chapter he notes: "...it should be mentione
Thanks, Tom. I should have stated that in the absence of radials, the coax will radiate instead due to the common mode current on the outside of the shield. That's a given. Let's forget that I said a
Ok, let's not make this black and white, then. :-) It goes without saying that both halves of the antenna (radials and the vertical) must be present in order for the bottom-fed vertical monopole to r
Thanks Bill and Herb about drilling a hole through the wall. That could be tough. It is a stone wall with no mortar. It is about 20-28" thick. It is well constructed with large field stones. It would
Hello Jorge, There is very little current flowing in each radial wire so the wire size matters very little. In your example you would be much better off with the 120 radials than 40. Keep in mind tho
Since the total current is divided into the number of radials you can compute the amount in each. I run 32 elevated all copper radials of #18 and 16 of a random mix and there is very, very, little po
Charles, I have two reversible beverages running through the woods. They both follow the terrain and are about 5-6 feet off the ground on average. One of them is about 500' and runs towards JA down t
Dennis: You have not reached a point of diminishing returns here. Although you see no virtual change in the antenna VSWR, the radiation efficiency of the antenna system improves every time you add ad
I have been using small guage wire for radials for many years with excellent results in the Pacific Northwest. My first 80 meter 4 square had several miles of number 21 motor rewinding insulated (pol
Ford - Dick Weber K5IU presented a paper in 1995 at the W5 DX Bash that included some work Dick had done in the area of elevated radial current imbalances with regards to remotely tuned low-band vert
March/April 2005 National Contest Journal has the last part of a two-part article by K3LC. He used Eznec Pro 4.0 with a double precision NEC-4 calculating engine. Much much data, but here's a simplif
Hi Fred, A long time ago at a QTH not too far away, I had a 100-ft shunt-fed tower for 160 in the middle of a large yard. I buried 200 radials that were 70 feet long on the north and south sides, 136
I too have been experimenting with elevated radials at the ridgetop tower here at K4IQ. The ground has too many rocks and old tree stumps and root systems from being cleared five years ago to use in-
Hi gang, This current subject about elevated radials is hitting home with me as I have considered doing the same thing. My small QTH of 0.6 acres on Lake Wylie, SC, affords me precious room for layin
Here is a summary of responses on this question. No particular order to responses. No one reported any problems with frost heaves. W1DXH: -- Anchors with clothespins and doll pins, driven in with a h
To: <topband@contesting.com> Hi John, Thank you for being civil and non-personal in your comments. That prevents it from being a peeing contest. Not unless the radials, feedline, or other conductors
As an exercise, thought I'd try to write how this seems to me. From what I've read and experimented about the subject, which is not nearly as much as many here, there seem to be (at least) several va