Topband: Question - optimum number of radials

[Charlie Cunningham]

Hi, Bill

Well, like you, I also live on a fairly small city lot with way too much
bedrock coming up to the surface and a long concrete driveway, so buried
radials just aren't feasible for me! So I hung my inverted L in a tall tulip
poplar in one corner of the lot and I ran two elevated resonant radials down
the fence lines - elevated about 5-6 feet. I worked good stuff all over the
world including JA and Indian Ocean, and VK6. If I could hear 'em, I could
work 'em! BEST thing I EVER did for myself was to build a KAZ terminated
receiving loop for the low-bands 160-30m, so I could HEAR more!  Worked
great!! And no, I didn't have 100 buried radials, but just a few elevated
resonant radials will produce very effective results for the transmit
antenna!

73
Charlie, K4OTV

-----Original Message-----
From: Topband [mailto:topband-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of Bill
Cromwell
Sent: Friday, February 14, 2014 10:02 AM
To: topband at contesting.com
Subject: Re: Topband: Question - optimum number of radials

On 02/14/2014 09:15 AM, Charlie Cunningham wrote:
> That's a lot of good information, Richard! Thanks for sharing!
>
> 73,
> Charlie, K4OTV
>
>
The whole topic of radials as it applies to me on my small lot is "put in as
many as you can". The same probably applies to others on small lots. On top
band I do not have room in *any* direction for a quarter wavelength
radial..not even one. In some directions a quarter wavelength radial wire
might be bent to fit but that begins the many compromises. 
Obviously that setup would have the antenna in one corner of the lot so
there would be no radials at all in one or two directions. So.. no quarter
wave radials at all. I have been buying small spools of wire and will be
adding them to whatever puny little radial field I DO have.

As soon as the ice and snow is gone (maybe in June?) I will be elevating my
wire antenna the rest of the way to the treetops and adding in the radial
wires. In the process of elevating the antenna I will learn to be ace with a
rod n reel <grin>. The whole point of that exercise is to
*miss* the tree and go over the top. So far I've only ever tried to
*hit* a spot out on the water. It's not hard to hit the water <wink>. I
didn't do too badly finding a particular spot on the water with the bait.
But the tree top is not "over" there. It's "up" there.

73,

Bill  KU8H
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