Topband: Ground Radials

[Jon Zaimes AA1K]

Hi Fred,

A long time ago at a QTH not too far away, I had a 100-ft shunt-fed tower for 160 in the middle of a large yard. I buried 200 radials that were 70 feet long on the north and south sides, 136 feet on th east and west sides. To bury, I attached the wire to a screwdriver in the ground at the base of the tower, and to another at the outter end of the wire. The wire was pulled tight. Then I used a garden spade to go along the wire and cut a slit about an inch or so deep the full length of the wire. Then I went along with a flat screwdriver and pushed the wire into the slit. The wire I used varied from some no. 18 enameled to assorted sizes of insulated wire (no 26 to no. 12) to old RG6 pulled from the dumpster at the local CATV outlet. Before burying the radials I would mow the grass to the lowest setting on the mower.

This concealed the wires nicely and I was able to mow over them with no problem. We even turned this part of the yard into the pasture for a couple of years and had a horse grazing there, without any peril to the radials.

More recently, at my current QTH, when it came time to put down a new radial field six years ago I decided to use a bit less effort. This is actually a grid for a K3LR-style parasitic array, with the center element and four parasitic elements spaced around the tower -- 120 radials around each element for a total of 600 radials bonded at the midpoints. I used no. 12 THHN stranded, insulated wire (scrounged from local scrap yard) and a few of no. 18 enameled wire. After mowing the area at the lowest setting, the wires were simply laid on the ground. I started this project in October and stopped when the first snow covered the ground in January. I used some j-shaped aluminum staples from the fenciing section of the local farm supply store to hold the wire down at just a few stubborn spots, but for the most part they just laid flat without any staples. 

In the past six years I have probably nipped a dozen or so of these radials while mowing -- usually when there was a problem with the mower deck causing it to dig into the ground. The wires have pretty much worked themselves into the ground, or at least the grass has grown around them to conceal them. There are a few spots where the ground was hard and they are still visible on the surface.

Much of this radial field goes through woods. The center element is in the midst of a small grove of loblolly pine trees. In this area, I simply raked the pine needles aside, laid down the radials, then covered back over with the needles. I don't mow this area, but if I wanted to I"d just use a weed wacker so as not to disturb the needles. Others go through woods which are a mix of hardwoods and loblolly pines -- so lots of maple, oak and other leaves on the ground in addition to pine needles. These wire either were "snaked" through the leaves by using a piece of 10-ft. tubing -- which also helped to get through areas with thick underbrush -- or by raking the leaves aside and then covering the radial.

Chicken screen -- even galvanized -- will corrode away in just a few years. I used some in a dog pen around the same time I put down the radial field -- to keep the dog from digging out -- and recently tried to find the screen but couldn't come up with any of it. This after just six years.

Others have written about using mechanical lawn edgers to cut slits for burying radials, and pulling a plow behind a lawn  tractor to do the same (ON4UN's book has a photo of this). Check the archives.

73/Jon AA1K
Felton, Delaware

At 07:36 AM 11/11/03, you wrote:
>What are the rest of yous guys doing that have ground radials in a woods situation? I would appreciate some innovative ways around this ground radial problem.
>Thanks for any help.
>Fred KC4MOP
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