[TowerTalk] 1/4 wave vertical with counterpoise

[David Gilbert]

Thanks, Mike!

Yeah, the work you have done over the years with your 4-squares has been 
amazing.  I have been paying attention.  ;)

As you say, nothing we do can change the effect that the ground has on 
takeoff angle.  That's a far field effect and not a near field one.  
What we can do is try our best to keep the near field effects from 
having to travel through lossy earth.   LOTS of buried radials do that 
by changing the local ground conductivity, elevated radials do that by 
providing an alternative to the ground, and so will a tuned counterpoise 
(the last two being essentially the same thing electrically).

In fact, in reality, buried radials ALSO just provide an alternative to 
the lossy earth.  We just need more of them for the same effect because 
the earth forms a lossy dielectric around the wires.

This stuff gets kind of simple when you think about it long enough.

Take care,
Dave  AB7E



On 1/17/2026 10:12 AM, Mike Smith VE9AA wrote:
> It was a great video Dave!  It mirrors my experiences I have had with many
> raised wire verticals with raised radials here in New Brunswick over
> poor-medium soil. Most of mine (15M-160M) are fed as 4-squares (160M was a
> 2-el)  with only 2 raised radials, but I have and have had, other solo verts
> with up to 5 raised radials each.
>
>   I think they all work fairly well, but certainly not as examples of the
> best low angle antennas they might had they been located near salt water.  I
> am not usually beating anyone in pileups, but then I haven’t spent days
> installing and lots of money  on buying oodles of ground radials or towers
> with rotators either.(everything is a trade off if you don’t have very deep
> pockets)
>
> I generally tune the vertical wire with an estimated/calculated length (and
> 2 raised radials) as close as I can get in 1 or 2 sessions, then subsequent
> tuning is done playing primarily with the raised radial lengths and perhaps
> some slight height above ground and/or angle towards the Earth adjustments.
> I do this because the majority of my raised verticals are hung from trees in
> a difficult area of a small patch of woods on a slippery sloped hill and
> pruning can get complicated, especially since I ‘try’ to get the base of the
> vertical as high as possible to avoid deer and moose antlers.
>
> If 2026 allows I’d like to install a raised(?maybe?) 10M 4-square (shaped
> like a 4-element VDA) but perhaps on top of a 10.5’ old aluminum mesh
> satellite dish. Not sure the effort is worth it. (the Earth still plays the
> major role in takeoff angle) but we’ll see.
>
> Thanks a lot for your work on this. I think I see a couple more youtube
> videos of yours that deserve watching.
>
> Thanks Mike VE9AA
>
>
>
> I mentioned before that I thought we should consider a radial system for a
> quarter wave vertical to be just a counterpoise, and it turns out that a bit
> of research says that is obvious.  That wouldn't be the first time I
> stumbled across something I thought was interesting only to find out that it
> was common knowledge, but in any case I did some EZNEC models to investigate
> that further.  This YouTube video describes what I did.
>
> https://youtu.be/teazjobNBFA
>
> I'm pretty crummy at these videos (and they are often best watched at
> a higher speed) so be gentle with me, but I'd appreciate any comments
> --- pro or con --- on the content.
>
> Take care,
> Dave   AB7E
>
>
> Mike - Keswick Ridge, NB, Canada
>
>
>
>
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