Interesting........
On my eight foot rods, I have the top 24 inches hollowed out, about
18 inches wide, every quarter I pack it with 5 parts..Rock salt and 2
parts...crushed Gypsum board and 2 parts Bentonite....mix it into a
sloppy batter and fill the holes....seems to never dry out and when
it rains they get a recharge... I use the four rod 9 foot triangle
off each leg of the towers, and the double 4 inch copper ribbon
coming out of the shack, attached to another 4 rods...been doing this
since the mid 70ies, and they say the salt leaches further into the
surrounding earth, increasing the effective inclusion. Several of
these can reduce the combined resistance to a fraction of a ohm.
What it all means ..who knows...but I have Zero RFI and equal a pair
of 8877 with my pair of 800's, of course the antenna helps....How
much it helps I don't know but I'm not about to quite my practice!!
-Bill
http://www.kc4pe.com/amateurshack.htm
At 02:35 PM 1/21/2007, Jim Lux wrote:
>At 09:59 AM 1/21/2007, you wrote:
> >Has anyone had experience using copper sulfate as applied to the soil
> >surrounding a ground mounted vertical???? Some hams in my area have the
> >belief that applying it to the soil will improve the ground efficiency on
> >par with installing radials. Opinions??
>
>
>"belief" is the right word. fact is somewhat different.
>
>It will improve the DC conductivity, in the region of the rod, until
>it leaches away.
>
>The advantage of a radial field is that it effectively increases the
>conductivity over a large area, making the soil surface a closer
>approximation to the "infinite conductive plane".
>
>Copper sulfate (or other salts) might be useful for a DC or low
>frequency (60Hz) application, where what you want is a good "wire
>connection to the earth", but not so hot for an application where
>what you really want to do is improve the RF properties over a large area.
>
>Unless you want to "sow your fields with salt" and then water
>heavily, to get that "salt marsh ground plane", but that's going to
>take a LOT of salt.
>
>And, even for DC ground rod kinds of applications, maintenance and
>corrosion are issues.
>
>Jim, W6RMK
>
>
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