[TowerTalk] Chicken Wire Ground Screen

[Lee Buller]

Chicken wire is not a good idea.  Why?  The wire corrodes where it is tied together and creates a junction that has a higher resistance.  After awhile you have a ground plane full of little resistors.  I've experienced that it (the chicken wire)  can create a "noise" factor into the antenna system because of these junctions.  I have found (following published findings of others) the 32 to 35 radials are good enough and that anything over that has diminishing returns and might not be worth the work and expense.  Yes, 60 radials seems to be the "gold standard" but I've seen very little return in going from 32 to 35 radials to 60 radials.

Your Mileage May Vary.....

Lee k0WA


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________________________________
From: GALE STEWARD <k3nd at yahoo.com>
To: towertalk reflector <towertalk at contesting.com>
Sent: Monday, June 15, 2009 12:06:04 PM
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Chicken Wire Ground Screen


I might actually give this idea a try this fall. You could roll out the chicken wire in several directions and tie it into the normal radial system for some increased performance (?) during the winter DX/contest season. Then just roll it back up in the spring. As I recall, ON4UN used to do this some years ago.

73, Stew K3ND

--- On Fri, 6/12/09, Pete Smith <n4zr at contesting.com> wrote:

> From: Pete Smith <n4zr at contesting.com>
> Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Chicken Wire Ground Screen
> To: k2xx at swva.net, towertalk at contesting.com
> Date: Friday, June 12, 2009, 8:33 PM
> Check out www.k3lr.com  for Rob
> Sherwood's paper given during the 
> 2009 Dayton antenna forum.  If I recall correctly, he
> used hardware 
> cloth that was hot-galvanized after weaving and fastened
> together 
> with cable-clamps.  In a visit to a local farm supply,
> I found some 
> similar material with 2 X 4 openings that was about half as
> expensive
> 
> 73, Pete
> 
> At 05:06 PM 6/12/2009, Joe Giacobello wrote:
> >I know that there are several folks out there who are
> using chicken wire
> >ground screens in addition to radials for their
> verticals.  I'm curious
> >to know if the various sections of chicken wire are (1)
> soldered to one
> >another and (2) to the radial system?  I'd guess
> if the chicken wire
> >sections were overlapped at their edges, there would be
> a high
> >probability of their making contact somewhere along
> their length so that
> >soldering wouldn't be unnecessary.  No?
> >
> >I presume that the lifetime on the ground for the
> chicken wire is
> >relatively short?  Two-three years?  OTOH,
> wouldn't the remnants of the
> >wire and its degradation products enhance the
> conductivity of the soil
> >surrounding the antenna so that the remaining radials
> are now more
> >effective?
> >
> >Just curious to know what your collective experiences
> and thoughts are
> >on this subject.
> >
> >Thanks for your input.
> >
> >73, Joe
> >K2XX
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