Hi Tom, Eric, Darrell:
I have been reading your discourses on ground losses, near
fields, far fields, etc. with considerable interest.
I would appreciate having your comments on my 15 year old
rusty ground radial system. After many (!) years in the mid west
in Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, I was in a hurry to get on topband
in N.C. and did not want to spend the time and energy needed
to install 120 or even 60 copper wire ground radials. In 1981 I
rolled out 12 strips of heavy galvanized iron wire fencing. Each
strip is 18" wide and 100 ft. long. I paid considerable attention
to connection losses at the base of the 1/4 wave tower, using
stainless steel hardware to separate the dissimilar metals, etc.
I grew up with the "little C" theory and figured each radial
strip was easily the equivalent of 5-10 (?) copper wire radials.
After 15 years the fencing strips are dark with corrosion and
rust and mostly covered with grass and sod. I still tangle with
them occasionally if I set the mower deck too low. I still seem
able to work anything I can hear on any of seven 2-wire
reversable beverage antennas
Question: Does all of this rust in parallel still make a decent ground
screen? Aren't there many more little C's than if I had
used single copper wires? This year I erected 8 copper wire
elevated radials on top of the rust but don't really see much,
if any, difference in cracking the pileups. Propagation
conditions seem to me to be more important than any other
factor or combination of factors on 160 meters. What do you
think? For me 160 is the last and only DX frontier left in 1996.
73 Dave N4SU
P.S. Tom, I remember you from your WA8IJI days. In my
basement I still have one of those 5 ft. diameter 2-turn loops
made out of Cable TV coax. I wonder if Hermes Electronics
Limited (and their phased arrays of Aperiodic Loop Antennas)
still exists.
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