[TowerTalk] elevated radials vertical

[Jim Brown]

On Fri, 08 Jun 2007 14:26:26 -0700, KF6PYF at blaze1024.com wrote:

>Ground mounting has become popular not because it works better but 
>because DX engineering sells all sorts of neat accessory's to 
assist
>in ground mounting.

W8JI has correctly identified the issues with respect to elevated 
and ground mounting. It's highly dependent on clutter around the 
antenna, losses in the ground system, the operating frequency, and 
what terrain does to vertical angle. 

At my present QTH in CA, a ground mounted, top-loaded vertical with 
40 radials 70 ft long works VERY well on 80 and 160. But a ground-
mounted quarter wave vertical for 40 meters with that same radial 
system works very poorly. As Tom has suggested, my judgments as to 
what works and what doesn't are based on actively switching during 
contests between these antennas and high dipoles. When an antenna 
is working well, the differences between it and a reference will 
vary depending on what vertical angles are propagating between you 
and the other station, and which antenna has the advantage will 
vary from hour to hour, and from one distant QTH to another, so you 
need a lot of observation to make a good evaluation. 

Before making the sweeping judgement you've stated here, I suggest 
a serious study of relevant sections of the ARRL Antenna Book. 

73,

Jim Brown K9YC