On 9/25/11 1:25 AM, km5vi wrote:
>
>> From ON4UN's Low-Band DXing regarding ground enhancements using mesh
> screening... "Steel is a very poor conductor at RF"
Steel may be a poor conductor (skin effect makes it worse), but it's
still orders of magnitude better than soil.
think of radials as increasing the conductivity of the soil. If you
have a conductor that fills 1 millionth the cross section, and is a
million times the conductivity, you'll just match.
Soil is on the order of .5 to 30 milliSiemens/meter
Copper is 60 megaSiemens/meter
that's 9 orders of magnitude.
I suppose if one is comparing an antenna with copper radials to one with
aluminum to one with steel, all with the same size conductors, the
copper will be better than the others. But, comparing to no radials,
they'll ALL be better, and that's usually the ham situation.
If you put down 10 times as much aluminum as copper, clearly, you're
better off with the aluminum.
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