Topband: Anyone purchased the ARRL book on Short Antennas for160???

[Richard Fry]

Guy Olinger wrote:
>...the presentation shows the max of the four elevated at *minus* 1.17, 
>while the buried radials are minus 0.71.  That means the 4 elevated are 
>about a half dB inferior to dense buried.

The text of my post first including the URL for my NEC study (link below) 
stated that there was about 0.5 dB difference between them because I hadn't 
taken the time to trim the monopoles heights slightly to produce identical 
results.  But that wasn't necessary to make the point that the system with 
elevated radials installed over poor earth having no buried radials in it 
has essentially the same performance as the system using 120 x 1/4-wave 
radials (only), buried in that same earth.

>Did you run that four elevated model setup with the buried radials in 
>place, but not connected to the feedpoint, just "floating", or was it just 
>four elevated over plain ground.

The elevated system was comprised of five conductors, only:  the vertical 
monopole and the four horizontal radials -- as per the wire model shown as 
an inset in the elevation pattern for the elevated system in my graphic. 
That elevated system has no metallic connection to the earth, and no other 
metallic conductors in the model.

>What were the ground constants in use when you ran the models?

As stated in my earlier post linked below, and also in large letters at the 
top of my NEC study page, it was 1 mS/m, d.c. 5.

>When you say "closely replicates", are you comparing the models' groundwave 
>display to field strength measurements at ground?

The inverse distance field intensity for 1 kW of applied power at a distance 
of 1 km determined by the consultant for WPCI's elevated system closely 
replicates the inverse distance field expected by the FCC for a 1/4-wave 
monopole driven against 120 x 1/4-wave buried radials (302 mVm and 307 mV/m, 
respectively).  A perfect 1/4-wave monopole driven against a perfect ground 
plane produces about 313.6 mV/m at 1 km for 1 kW of applied power.

My NEC study shows that the peak gain and radiation pattern of the two 
systems compared essentially are duplicates.  Equal antenna system gains 
produce equal fields at a given distance, for a given applied power.

Note that the basic information needed to answer the questions shown above 
already was included in my earlier posts.

http://lists.contesting.com/archives//html/Topband/2014-01/msg00202.html

R. Fry