Hi, Bill Well, like you, I also live on a fairly small city lot with way too much bedrock coming up to the surface and a long concrete driveway, so buried radials just aren't feasible for me! So I hung my inverted L in a tall tulip poplar in one corner of the lot and I ran two elevated resonant radials down the fence lines - elevated about 5-6 feet. I worked good stuff all over the world including JA and Indian Ocean, and VK6. If I could hear 'em, I could work 'em! BEST thing I EVER did for myself was to build a KAZ terminated receiving loop for the low-bands 160-30m, so I could HEAR more! Worked great!! And no, I didn't have 100 buried radials, but just a few elevated resonant radials will produce very effective results for the transmit antenna!
73 Charlie, K4OTV -----Original Message----- From: Topband [mailto:topband-boun...@contesting.com] On Behalf Of Bill Cromwell Sent: Friday, February 14, 2014 10:02 AM To: topband@contesting.com Subject: Re: Topband: Question - optimum number of radials On 02/14/2014 09:15 AM, Charlie Cunningham wrote: > That's a lot of good information, Richard! Thanks for sharing! > > 73, > Charlie, K4OTV > > The whole topic of radials as it applies to me on my small lot is "put in as many as you can". The same probably applies to others on small lots. On top band I do not have room in *any* direction for a quarter wavelength radial..not even one. In some directions a quarter wavelength radial wire might be bent to fit but that begins the many compromises. Obviously that setup would have the antenna in one corner of the lot so there would be no radials at all in one or two directions. So.. no quarter wave radials at all. I have been buying small spools of wire and will be adding them to whatever puny little radial field I DO have. As soon as the ice and snow is gone (maybe in June?) I will be elevating my wire antenna the rest of the way to the treetops and adding in the radial wires. In the process of elevating the antenna I will learn to be ace with a rod n reel <grin>. The whole point of that exercise is to *miss* the tree and go over the top. So far I've only ever tried to *hit* a spot out on the water. It's not hard to hit the water <wink>. I didn't do too badly finding a particular spot on the water with the bait. But the tree top is not "over" there. It's "up" there. 73, Bill KU8H _________________ Topband Reflector Archives - http://www.contesting.com/_topband _________________ Topband Reflector Archives - http://www.contesting.com/_topband