Topband: SOLDERING RADIALS - N9LB

[Lloyd Berg]

I live in southern Wisconsin, clay soil, and have been using the modern
Oatey brand "No Lead" plumbing solder for all outdoor soldering.  I've been
using the Oatey plumbing solder ( sold by Home Depot and others )  since I
moved to the current QTH in 1998.

I'm gamma matching my 60 foot tower, ( with a stack of VHF antennas on top )
for 80 and 160 operation.
( you can clearly see the gamma on the left side of the center tower on my
QRZ page )

I started out with four, then eight, and each year I add a few more radials.

Each time I add more radials, I dig up the #6 copper ground ring around the
base of the tower and the plumbing solder from 13 years ago always looks as
good as does the soldered joints from the previous year.

BTW, I'm up to 60 radials now, and use an HP 3400A voltmeter to look for and
measure improvements - if any.

The biggest gains occurred between the 4 to 8, and 8 to 16 radial upgrade
years.  Going from 16 to 32 was unnoticeable almost unreadable, but 32 to 60
made a very significant improvement - but that took a long time to
implement.  Also the bandwidth narrowed quite a bit with 60 - indicating a
lot less soil loss with the 60 radials.

Will I go above 60 radials?  Yes, as time and motivation allows.
Do I expect another big improvement? - No, but hopefully maybe a dB or two
if I decide to put a lot more copper in the ground.

Aerial radials are not an option for my location.

73

Lloyd - N9LB