Topband: elevated radials

[Jim Jarvis]

My last on this topic... from the 11 Oct 1996 archives, N7CL responding
to an inquiry from WC7M.... Below, a small snippet from a lengthy, but
pithy post.  If you're seriously interested in the topic, I recommend you
visit the archives.  Thanks to N4HY for reminding me of this.

Jim/N2EA

-0-

"So, does this answer the question "Do elevated radials work?"  Yes. The
answer is that they are effective at reducing the "connection" loss.  And
if they are "elevated" far enough (along with the base of the antenna),
they work as well as a full density on-the-ground screen in terms of
radiation effeciency (ignoring changes in the shape of the resulting
elevation pattern).

So it is probably the case that both the guy who says "I added 4 elevated
radials to my vertical antenna and the performance improved greatly" and
the guy who says "I and others have evaluated 4 elevated radials against a
full ground screen and the elevated radials loose by 4 - 6 dB" are correct."