[TowerTalk] Re Railroad tracks

[Rob Atkinson, K5UJ]

This question came up at some point in the past year on one of the broadcast 
reflectors i look at.  There was some station down near the texas gulf coast 
as i recall, that had a directional array along side a rail line, unused i 
guess, and the consensus was to forget it.    The tracks went along 
tangential to the radial fields, which i think is your situation also, and 
most of your ground return and efficiency is controled by the amount of wire 
you can get down on the ground as spokes all around your feedpoint within 
1/4 to 1/2 wave from it.

I don't know anything about real estate law, but I would think that if I 
were to tie the counterpoise to one of the tracks, I'd eventually wind up 
getting a letter from a railroad lawyer, or worse....
Depending on how sophisticated the rail spur is, there might be signalling 
current on the rails or a connection between both of them might trigger a 
crossing gate.

rob/k5uj

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