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Re: [TowerTalk] 16om vertical and the number of radials

To: towertalk@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] 16om vertical and the number of radials
From: "Lux, Jim" <jim@luxfamily.com>
Date: Sat, 3 Dec 2022 13:31:37 -0800
List-post: <mailto:towertalk@contesting.com>
On 12/3/22 12:39 PM, Leeson wrote:
My thought on this is that the very shallow angle grazing reflection from the dielectric discontinuity at the distant ground surface is pretty much 100%. The ground permittivity and conductivity variability would have a bigger effect for higher radiation angles.

Only for Horizontal Polarization.

For vertical pol, it's a lot more influenced by the soil properties, more to the point, the phase angle of the reflection varies with soil properties and angle, a lot more than for H-pol. H-pol has a reflection phase of pretty close to zero degrees regardless of the angle of incidence.  (this is why HFTA only does horizontal pol - it's easier to calculate)

The ARRL Antenna Book has some graphs that show that at 1.8 MHz, the pseudo brewster angle (where the reflection coefficient magnitude is lowest) changes from about 1-2 degrees for the proverbial salt marsh to 30 degrees for "extremely poor", with "average" coming in around 8 degrees.






For fire protection and layout reasons, I have only two elevated radials on my full-size quarter-wave vertical, and it seems competitive enough. Because the SWR is low without any matching, I assume there's some ground loss, but my 12° sloping foreground seems to make up for it. From modeling, I expect a little gain to the northeast from the 140' tower reflector behind it.

We used two full-size half-wave verticals above a sloping foreground in our HC8 station, with very good results. One was always a little better, but it was hard to predict which one by direction alone. "Person with one watch knows what time it is; with two, never quite sure."

Dave

On 12/3/22 10:21 AM, Brian Beezley wrote:
Paul, W9AC: "Isn't the measured probe result only useful for near-field system efficiency analysis? By near-field I mean to obtain system efficiency within a wavelength or so of a vertical radiator.

But for skywave propagation field strength, don't we also need to know more about the ground conductivity much further out to more than 1km on 160m?"


Paul, I don't know how distant ground affects 160m specifically. But if you're on a hilltop, at low elevation angles your signal may reflect or diffract from ground miles away. Its permittivity and conductivity might be quite different than that of the ground beneath your antenna.

I think the main usefulness of knowing your ground characteristics is to predict antenna efficiency. That could easily determine your choice between a horizontal and vertical antenna on 80m or 40m.

If you have some idea of the ground quality far away, you could create a separate model with that value to study low-angle effects. You could take a drive and go measure distant ground. But you'd probably have to take a number of measurements to satisfy yourself that you had a representative sample. My ground probe calculator includes a utility that will average probe measurements. I had in mind making multiple measurements near the antenna, but you could use it to create an average of far-away ground for a low-angle model.

Brian
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