[TowerTalk] Radial Connection to tower

[Stan Stockton]

Rick,

I noticed this response and have a question.  

Background:

I have an 80m 4 Square insulated 25G verticals and another tower that is grounded that I shunt feed for 160m.  In all cases the radials are soldered to a wire that goes around the concrete bases of the towers.  Then there is a wire or two from the ring to a plate that that has a female UHF connector on each of the 4 Square towers or to a tower leg on the one that is shunt fed.  Those wires are probably 12-18 inches long and maybe #10 or so.

Question:

Based on your measurements, do you think I can make a noticeable improvement by doing something different?

Thanks... Stan, K5GO 

> On Dec 12, 2015, at 10:26 AM, Richard (Rick) Karlquist <richard at karlquist.com> wrote:
> 
> I have played around with this problem and made some actual
> measurements.  My conclusion was you need a considerable number
> of radials between the ring and the tower; at least 12 and
> preferrably 20 or 30, especially on 40 meters.  A mesh is a
> lot of trouble and would need to be fairly closely spaced
> to be effective.