I think two Tom's were in the following snipped
bit of dialogue:
>> Are your radials just laying on top of the ground?
>between the radial and radiator.
>
>If I didn't mow the pastures or have animals and people running around, I'd
>just lay em out like you do in straight lines.
>
>> Mine are insulated and just meander around the back 40 on top of the
>brush and ground.
Aloha from my topical vine infested vertical antenna farm,
There seems to be no way I can kill off these pesky, overnight
propagating tropical vines. I have tried two expensive chemical
solutions, RoundUp and Triox (the most expensive!).
These do essentially nothing! As whatever vine the chemicals got
is passing away, new vines are already replacing them, sometimes
have crawled a great distance, either on the ground or with air
borne, long thin feelers for something else to climb upon, hi!
My verticals back there are each about 12 feet high, the base that
is, on top a Radio Shack push up pole, that is not pushed up
more that a couple feet or so. Radial set up now is four elevated
wires, each trimmed to resonance, that is 1/4 wave long about,
with the actual antenna resonance originally set by adjusting
the length of the vertical element after the radials were cut and
mounted. Bunch of work taking everything down to retune, but
I felt worth the effort. Now, with vines on everything, the resonance's
on both my TL-80 and GL-160 Gladiators are well below the
band edges; much added capacitance to the radials, I guess.
So, as I cannot get rid of the vines, and I can't get to the ground,
undergrowth is just too darn thick and matted with smaller and
dead vegetation what do I do?
Can I leave the verticals up on the poles, where I can keep the vines
back with selective application of the RoundUp; this stops the
blooming runners from climbing the vertical elements, and then
just lower the radial wires to the tops
of the brush/vine undergrowth. It is on out on the radial wire runs,
where they are approaching the ground, that the vines attack, no
vines on the radials probably within 20 or 30 feet of the antenna
bases, have been able to keep that area where the radials are
above my head, clear of the vine growth. Lots of vegetation all
around below the elevated radials and right to the base of the
antenna poles, and all is often quite wet from frequent rainfall.
And the humidity is high, so stays wet out there, even without
rain for a few hours.
With the radial wire just dropping to the brush top level directly down
from the antenna element base some 8 or 9 feet higher than the
vegetation tops, could I then just lay the remaining radial wire out
across the vegetation, and allow the inevitable overgrowth to
occur, keeping the vines from climbing up near the antenna pole?
And, I suppose I would have to add, say 32 more radial wires,
at least, to each vertical for such a set up to perform well?
As the radials are often in contact with rain soaked vegetation,
should I switch over to insulated radial wire?? (or maybe even
up to 60+ wires on the bushes per vertical?)
Probably this is a poor place to have attempted vertical antenna use;
but I had no idea I would have such a problem with the tropical vines!
Is also no doubt that my suggested solution is neither fish nor foul,
that is neither a ground mounted, nor elevated radial set up!
73, Jim, KH7M
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