[TowerTalk] Radial question

[Donald Chester]

> For ground-laid radials, didn't Jim make the point that they serve primarily to shield the Earth from the antenna's RF?

> 73, kelly, ve4xt 

That's true - to shield the radiating antenna from the LOSSY earth.  Some self-proclaimed experts have argued with me on that point, saying I was wrong and that the function of the radials is not to act as a shield, but to return earth currents back to the base of the vertical  with minimal resistive loss. Equally true.  It's only a matter of semantics.

The earth makes a poor conductor for gathering the displacement currents from the antenna and returning them to the base of the radiator.  The radial wires each act like a shunt  wire to short out the ground resistance return the current with less loss,  effectively by-passing the lossy earth.  By definition, a shield. No matter which way you look at it, we are talking about the exact same phenomenon.


Don k4kyv