[UK-CONTEST] 'Remote' radials...

[Stewart Rolfe]

Hi all,

Continuing in the 'remote' vein I have a scenario for comment/advice:-

Shack in the garden centred on a decent system of radials trailing round the garden and into a neighbouring farm field (sheep, not ploughed!)

Garden is wife's pride and joy so maybe I want to put up a temporary (single band) vertical out in the field for a weekend's contesting. So how effective can I expect the radial system to be when it's connected to the antenna earth by a possibly longish earth strap? If the strap was electrically isolated and 0.25 wavelenths the antenna earth should be very high impedance and a lousy zero potential; by the same token a half wavelength should be fine...?

Also what's going to happen to the radiation pattern in broad terms?

Thanks for any comments,

Stewart Rolfe, GW0ETF