Topband: Radials help

[Guy Olinger K2AV]

If the dirt underneath IS fairly uniform, then putting down equal lengths
WILL work.  Isn't the point to know whether that is true or not?  It's not
to not try anything.  It's to try something that you know will work, once
you *know* what you have to work with.  The ARRL and ON4UN material presume
uniformity.  That, unfortunately, is only true where it's true, and it's
not true often enough.

An analyzer and a 46m DOG, and a couple hours worth of stretching the thing
out, will inform one and allow choosing a counterpole strategy that will
work at one's own place.

Don't we owe it to our friends on topband to not give *general* advice that
only works in *specific* situations.  People spend money and time based on
what they read here.

73, Guy.

On Fri, Feb 10, 2012 at 1:34 PM, Eddy Swynar <deswynar at xplornet.ca> wrote:

>
> On 2012-02-10, at 1:21 PM, Guy Olinger K2AV wrote:
>
> If any of you think an insulated radial field can just plopped down based
> on a formula on just any plot of land and be efficient, think again. All
> that is necessary to be abysmally INefficient is for the construction
> ground fill underneath your sod to be variable in composition, or contain
> metallic pipes or buried wires or a septic system.  In this case your
> radials are no longer ELECTRICALLY dense and uniform, current distribution
> becomes wacky, effectively removing radials from the system, and the radial
> system has become an unbalanced ground heater, and quite inferior to an
> elevated counterpoise. (Sound familiar?)
>
>
> *Hi Guy,*
>
> All this talk about "idealized" radial systems, vs. "compromised" radial
> fields, hearkens me back to the words of an old *Rolling Stones *song, to
> whit:
>
> *"You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes you just
> might find you get what you need." *
>
> I'll never have the proverbial "120 full-length radials" here (what I may
> *want*), so I'll just have to make do with my 24 one-eighth wave
> compromises (what I *need*---certainly better than no radials at all! Hi).
>
> *~73~ de Eddy VE3CUI - VE3XZ*
>
>