Topband: Historical note: Radial Depth

[Dennis OConnor]

12" down on 160 meters is identical with being on top for amateur purposes for most midwest soils. I did buried dipole signal loss measurements years back. I do not remember the exact numbers but for 80 meters one foot down was a small fraction of one dB compared to laying on top the soil (Michigan soil) And for 160 it would be an unmeasureable difference with amateur instrumentation (usually just an S-meter) The trenches were cut with my backhoe. By the time we got to 160 I had run out of time, energy, and the soil started freezing so never finished that experimental series.
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I had a Po' Boy lab setup using a Fluke 8840A to measure rectified received voltage as a voltage drop across a 1% precision load resistor and an oscilloscope on a reference antenna to ensure the transmitter was adjusted to the same received signal strength above ground at the burial site for each run, 2 meter handhelds for the crew, etc. It was fun because we were working at nearly a mile separation to get out of the near field.. I miss those days.