[TowerTalk] Horizontal vs. Vertical

[John Langdon]

Probably not worth the effort, IMHO.  Better to do radials, elevated or 
buried.  Even if you covered your whole property with solid copper sheet 
and drilled drain holes, if the ground conductivity is low out to many 
wavelengths, verticals may not perform well.  I think the 6Y4A stuff 
indicates that salt water is the key, and even then you need a well thought 
out radial system.

Many years ago, W5VA (now SK) built a new house in Corpus Christi, Texas 
out on a point in the bay, surrounded by salt water for about 300 degrees. 
 He put in a lawn sprinkler system with copper pipe instead of plastic, 
which covered the whole yard, with a complete perimeter of copper pipe 
around the property.  At the edges of the property that were on the bay, he 
ran long copper wires (300'+) out into the bay (the anger of shrimp?). He 
tied all of his equipment into this ground system.  He was one of the 
biggest signals out of the US (see the old W3AFM QST articles) and he could 
hear stuff S5 that decent stations 10 blocks away could just barely detect. 
 I listened to him run daily schedules with VU2JA and 4S7NE.  He copied 
them Q5 8 days out ten.  I only heard them 2 days out of ten.  Since the 
"no extensive ground system" experiment was never run, I don't know what it 
would have been like without it.

But if I ever build a house out on a point in salt water.......(that 
doesn't have any !^#*&#$% deed restrictions)......

73 John N5CQ


-----Original Message-----
From:	Blake M Meinecke [SMTP:n4gi@juno.com]
Sent:	Sunday, May 10, 1998 11:49 PM
To:	towertalk@contesting.com
Subject:	Re: [TowerTalk] Horizontal vs. Vertical

The thread on verticals brought to mind a few questions.  I knew a ham
who placed metal rock-lathe chicken wire-ish stuff down in his whole yard
(city lot in neighborhood) before laying sod.  Pieces were connected
somehow (don't exactly remember) possibly by small hog-ring clamps(?).
This setup was then used to ground his tower (small tribander @ 40 odd
feet) and verticals.  He swore by this method, and recomended it.
Question #1;  is this an asset or just a lotta work??  #2;  Has anyone
done this?  #3;  Drawbacks?  (rust deterioration?  better than tons of
radials?  What kind of radius would be necessary for any given band vert.
to be effective, if so??)
maybe the grass would get too angy???

Blake, N4GI

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