[TowerTalk] Vertical in pond

[Roger Parsons]

I really don't know the reason - my experience is purely anecdotal. I do not however think it is much to do with the conductivity or otherwise of the water. The water is pretty pure (drinkable without processing although we do process it :-), and from December until April it is frozen to a depth of well over a metre - and I understand that ice is quite a good insulator. The lake is about 25m deep if that makes any difference. What may be important is that I have a clear northerly takeoff over the lake from west through to east which is rather fortunate.

I have found antenna placement to be quite anomalous in other ways. I had a 40m vertical and a separate 30m vertical about 20m apart a few years ago (away from the lake). The 30m one was excellent and the 40m was useless, even though they were identical except for the radiator length. I adjusted the lengths and changed their use over - the 40m was still useless and the 30m excellent. Still haven't worked that out and still haven't got a good 40m antenna....

73 Roger
VE3ZI


--- On Tue, 17/3/09, Pete Smith <n4zr at contesting.com> wrote:

> From: Pete Smith <n4zr at contesting.com>
> Subject: Re: [TowerTalk]  Vertical in pond
> To: ve3zi at rac.ca, towertalk at contesting.com
> Date: Tuesday, 17 March, 2009, 9:24 AM
> Isn't it more likely that the ground
> characteristics in that location are 
> more favorable than in the previous one?  I can
> imagine ground well 
> saturated with fresh water as having a sufficient quantity
> of ions in 
> solution to improve its conductivity considerably. 
> The fresh water itself, 
> on the other hand, probably doesn't matter.  Or does
> it?  Anyone have 
> anything beyond anecdotal experience to pass on?
> 
> 73, Pete N4ZR
> 
> At 09:20 AM 3/17/2009, Roger Parsons wrote:
> 
> >Jim
> >
> >I'm not sure that this is exactly analagous, but I have
> a tri-band 
> >vertical mounted right at the edge of a reasonably
> large lake (~0.5km x 
> >20km). I found that that dramatically improved its
> performance compared to 
> >mounting it 100m away. The improvement was at least
> 10dB which changed it 
> >from being a waste of time to a useful second antenna -
> and the radial 
> >system (lots) was identical in each case.
> >
> >73 Roger
> >VE3ZI
> >
> >
> >
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