TopBand: El Nino

[Eric Gustafson Courtesy Account]

>Date: Thu, 26 Mar 1998 06:55:35 -0500 (EST)
>From: Bill Tippett <btippett@CTC.Net>
>
>Some comments from Phil YB0ARA/9 on El Nino and his EWE's:
>
>Some interesting points on the reflector about weather and rain.
>Earl talks about the desert turning green with all of the rain
>and having it now look like a golf course !  I live on a golf
>course and in my case with all the rain it looks like a lake.
>With less thunderstorm activity as well I think that is part of
>the reason I have had such good openings.  I have had a real
>"flood plain" for miles from the base of the vertical !  On the
>golf course if is two to three inches deep !  I also think we
>have had good conditions as well.

>With the EWE in the first few days of dry weather, I was not all
>that impressed !  With heavy rains and better conditions they
>began to "play".

This agrees well with some EWE antenna modeling I have been
doing.  The EWE, unlike the beverage, does _NOT_ like to be
operated over poor ground.  The EWE works best over perfect
ground.  The interesting thing is that the size of the region
around the EWE that must be highly conductive is small enough
that one could rationally consider putting ground screens under
EWEs.  If the EWE is not physically large, you can get away with
only a 60 to 80 foot radius of ground screen (even down at
topband).  At that radius, only 50 or so radials are necessary to
get extremely good performance up through 40 meters.

73, Eric  N7CL

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