Well, I ran out of time. Work keeps getting in the way. I wont get the radials down before the ground freezes as I still need to clean out the wild growth.
Presently I have three ¼ wave radials at each elevated feedpoint. The feedpoints are presently elevated because I have uneven terrain plus lots of wild growth towards the West. It seems over the past couple of years the ice loading has stretched the wire somewhat from the original dimensions. That affected the pattern. Last year I made sure all the lengths were fine again and the pattern seemed to improve. This past winter with heavy ice loading I seemed to have some stretching of the #14 wire. The pattern seems to be quite sensitive to the matched lengths of the radials. After reading N6LFs info and realizing I cant put up a plethora of ¼ wave elevated radials I want to try some shortened elevated radials to see if that helps the pattern. Hopefully the gain wont be affected much. The feedpoints are about 8 above ground. If I make the radials 36 long I can put up 6 at each feedpoint with fairly close symmetry. I believe that means I would need roughly 16-18uh at each feedpoint to resonate the radials. Instead of going with coil stock, is there any reason for not using a toroid with a number of turns? If not, I assume I would want to use a powdered-iron core? Any issues I should be concerned about? Any recommendations for what type of core I should use for this application? I plan on using #14 enameled wire. I would assume it is best to cover the core with glass tape first? Anything I am missing with this plan or am I wasting my time with the shortened radial idea? This winter I will finish cleaning the area to the West of the tower where I have lots of wild growth. Next year I will be able to put down ground mounted radials in all directions. The plan then will be to put down 30 radials under each feedpoint and lower the feedpoints to the ground. Figured going with 50 length radials. As always, all comments and suggestions are welcomed. 73 and Merry Christmas N2TK, Tony _______________________________________________ Stew Perry Topband Distance Challenge coming on December 29th.