I'm finally getting up a 160 antenna. Due to various factors, it will be
a wire vertical about 90-100 feet tall and will be "T-topped" to make up
the rest of the length. The support is a caternary system which will be off
center on a 200 by 800 foot lot.
My question is about the radials. I have lots of wire so no problem
there. I plan on laying down around 60 or 70 130 foot radials (lots of fun!)
Since the lot is very long I have room for the 130 foot radials for about
1/2 of the radial field (front and back sides). Since the lot is relatively
short on the sides, as the radials approach the sides of the lot I can not
fit 130 feet of radial on my lot. Eventually some of them will be as short
as 50 or 60 feet. However, I have a barbed wire fence on both sides
extending down both sides for about 400 feet in both directions. I can
"borrow" the neighbors overgrown field to extend the radials. I can also
electrically connect to a couple of the other barbed wire fences that run off
at
90 degrees from my fence
Would it be beneficial to connect the shorter radials to the barbed wire
(making sure to have a good connection)? If so would I want to connect EACH
short radial to EACH of the barbed wires (there are five of them)? If I
did connect to the barbed wire would anything be gained by connecting the
radials to the barbed wire and then continue to run them into the "borrowed"
field for the remainder of the 130 feet?
To make less work I would like to keep the connections to the barbed wire
at a minimum, but am not sure if less connections is the way to go. My gut
feeling is to connect all five of the barbed wires to each other and then
just connect the ends of the "shorter" radial wires to the fence, maybe
"borrowing" the neighbors field to extend the rest of the radial.
I know that radials can be very forgiving in terms of bending them around
corners and so forth, so I think my plan should work. Am I right?
Bill KH7XS/K4XS
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