[TowerTalk] ground radial length vs antenna height?

[Rob Atkinson]

I remember reading the K3LC paper when it came out.   He did a good
job with his research, modeling and plots and added yet another way of
looking at the ground system picture.   On thinking about it some more
however, I concluded that the premise:  "What's the best ground system
on a given band for a fixed amount of wire?" was not that useful,
except perhaps for those of us planning dxpeditions and field day.
The reason is that I think few hams construct permanent ground systems
with a fixed amount of wire in mind.   More likely, we use up what we
have, get more, use that up, buy more and so on and add radials
piecemeal over a period of months, so that it would be a mistake to
start out thinking, "I'm only going to put down X feet and quit" and
plan a design optimized for that much wire.  Anyway, if anyone wants
to limit himself to N feet have at it -- I kept going back and buying
more 500 foot spools at Home Depot and adding wire until it quit doing
any good.

As for the wire, if you don't care about the vertical after you put up
your tower, then the galv. wire should be okay.   If you want to put
down a ground system one time and have it last for years, invest in
copper of a gauge big enough to hold up and not break.   I like no. 14
solid (don't worry about the insulation); the solid is easier to work
with than the stranded.

73

rob / k5uj