Topband: Ground Radials

[Shoppa, Tim]

I think my situation is very similar to yours. My antenna (a "130 foot doublet up 80 feet" when fed on 80 and up, but when I tie the feedline together at the base it becomes a "Marconi T for 160M transmit") comes down at a corner of the house. That corner of the house is surrounded on:

90 degrees by backyard

90 degrees by driveway

90 degrees by garage

90 degrees by house

What I do is run radials off in all directions.

In the 90 degree sector taken up by the garage the radials are laid across the garage floor, go out the garage windows, then across the driveway and yard.

In the 90 degree sector taken up by the driveway, the radials run across the top of the blacktop driveway.

In the 90 degree sector taken up by the house, the radials run across the basement ceiling, through the crawlspace ceiling, and then out the other side of the house to emerge and be buried through the rest of the yard

In the 90 degree sector taken up by the yard there are buried radials.

The garage and driveway radials are rolled up in summertime (although redeployed for summer stew).

In no direction do I have a quarter wavelength. The shortest radials to the edge of the property line are 30 feet, and the longest ones are about 80 feet. There are about 40 radials in all, a mix of copper and aluminum electric fence wire.

As to performance... I have compared my signal strengths with other east coast contest stations into EU and western US. So have the contest stations. I feel I am an "alligator" with regards to 160M performance right now, I have a great transmit signal, but need to work on my receive system. Right now I have a K9AY loop and a west facing pennant and feel I still have a long way to go, to get to some phased loops for certain important directions.

Tim N3QE

-----Original Message-----
From: Topband [mailto:topband-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of Chortek, Robert L
Sent: Tuesday, January 07, 2014 10:30 AM
To: Eddy Swynar
Cc: topband at contesting.com
Subject: Re: Topband: Ground Radials

Thanks Eddy,

Rudy's work is excellent and I've studied much of it in detail!  

My question, in-artfully posed, related to the impact of the house on a ground radial system, not elevated vs . Ground radials.

All the best!

HNY

Bob AA6VB 

Sent from my iPhone

> On Jan 7, 2014, at 7:26 AM, "Eddy Swynar" <deswynar at xplornet.ca> wrote:
> 
> Hi All, 
> 
> I must admit that I've been only half-paying attention to the on-going discussions of ground radials here, but I do submit herewith---for your information & enlightenment---that VERY excellent series that was written-up by N6LF, and which was referred to earlier by another poster...
> 
> It may be accessed by clicking here:
> 
> http://www.antennasbyn6lf.com/2009/12/series-of-qex-articles-on-ground-system-experiments.html
> 
> ~73~ de Eddy VE3CUI - VE3XZ
> _________________
> Topband Reflector Archives - http://www.contesting.com/_topband
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