Topband: water saturated ground effect

[Roger D Johnson]

On my Cushcraft MA160V, the resonant SWR point has lowered from almost 5:1 to 
1:1 without the Amidon unUn in line. All 26 of the buried radials are attached. 
The main difference is that the normally dry ground is saturated from 6 inches 
of rain in the past two weeks. Can the water saturated soil really make this 
much of a difference? The last time this antenna showed this good of an SWR, was 
when I had no radials attached, in dry dirt, as expected- Of course attaching 
radials only began to show the true impedance mismatch, thus the need for the 
Amidon UnUn to match the coax to the antenna- Bottom line, the antenna is acting 
like I disconnected the radials, which are very much intact- My guess is that as 
the soil drys out, my SWR at sresonance will once again rise, and i will need 
the UnUn again for matching reasons- does this sound right>?
> 73  Paul  N0AH

My EZNEC model of the MA160V shows a feedpoint Z of approx 6.2 Ohms at Fr=1825 kHz.

73, Roger


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