The importance of radials all depends on vertical height.
If you can't put out much in the way of radials, you can
still get excellent results by making your vertical longer
than 1/4 wavelength and/or adding top loading. If this
is doable at your QTH, you can get by with only a few
radials and still get out very well because the radiation
resistance will be considerably higher than 36 ohms.
For some reason, most vertical users don't take advantage
of this and fret over radials. There seems to be a knee jerk
response of tuning the vertical to resonance, instead of tuning
it below resonance and then bringing it back with a series capacitor.
Only if you have a height limit problem (typically on the low bands) are
you looking at a serious tradeoff between radials and efficiency. Yhen
you might be looking a radiation resistance of only 5 or 10 ohms.
One foot of extra height is worth many feet of radial wire.
Think about it.
Rick N6RK
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