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[TowerTalk] Radials - What is the big deal?

To: towertalk@contesting.com
Subject: [TowerTalk] Radials - What is the big deal?
From: James Duffey <JamesDuffey@comcast.net>
Date: Sun, 1 Apr 2007 08:14:20 -0600
List-post: <mailto:towertalk@contesting.com>
Rob - I share your concern with QST's cavalier attitude toward  
radials. The real problem with statements such as those in the  
February QST:

"For verticlal radiators (including slopers), lay out radials if you  
can --
one or more of any length and configuration.  Don't be discouraged if  
you
hear that anything less than (take your pick: 25, 50, 120 and such)  
will be
useless.  Baloney,!  Try whatever you can --- even none!"

is that they encourage hams, particularly new ones, to put up  
antennas without thinking about how they work or about their overall  
performance.

And this is particularly bad with verticals, where enough silicon oil  
has already been spread.

I can't imagine giving advice to try a vertical without some thought  
to radials. There is a noticeable improvement in even adding a single  
radial to a groiund rod only sustem. The ham that uses 4 quarter wave  
radials would be much better off putting that 1 wavelength of wire  
down as 10 one tenth wave radials.

To encourage this cavalier attitude as to the role of radials in a  
vertical antenna essentially says that we should ignore half of the  
antenna system. I don't suppose that QST would publish an article on  
how to build a dipole where only one side of the dipole needed to be  
measured accurately. Yet they accept that kind of thinking for  
vertical antennas.

The role that radials play in vertical antennas is not a difficult  
concept to grasp and it could be relayed in a paragraph or two. Once  
one understands that the ground and hence the radials are actually  
part of the antenna and contribute to teh overall antenna efficiency,  
one has a much better idea of the importance of the ground and what  
to use for radials. If the author did not want to address these  
issues he could point to several useful references that have been  
published in QST over the years. - Dr. Megacycle KK6MC/5
--
James Duffey KK6MC/5
Cedar Crest NM 87008
DM65

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