I started out in 1963 with a Gotham V-80 vertical with no radials and
several pieces of conduit driven into the clay for a ground system.
Amazingly, I was actually able to make some contacts with that antenna.
Over the years, I have experimented quite a bit with antennas,
especially verticals. One of my bosses, who has a Ph.D. in microwave
engineering, and is a whiz at electromagnetics taught me a great deal
about how vertical antennas actually work. He is the one who showed me
that ground return losses make VSWR appear better, while reducing
antenna efficiency considerably.
I have used Hustler trap verticals on masts above my house, and with
tuned radials on the dacron guy ropes to good effect. I have also used
them on the ground with lots of radials, also to good effect. Some
years back, while I was a starving graduate student, a friend gave me a
used Hy-Gain DX-88 trap vertical. I put it out in the back yard with 24
18 foot radials, and let the grass grow up and bury the radials. It
worked out very well. Later, I decided to improve it a bit, and bought
the DX Engineering radial plate. Then, I bought about 2,000 feet of
their radial wire and a lot of the biodegradable staples to hold down
the wire in the grass. So, right now, I have roughly 2,500 feet of wire
hidden in the back yard. With that radial plate, it is very easy to
hook up radial wires. My lot is small, and is on the side of a hill. I
am blocked to the west and north by the house and the hill. My
expectations of this antenna were not much, as it is shielded in so many
directions. Instead, it has worked out far better than I ever could
have been expected. I normally run QRP, and occasionally will fire up
the Corsair II and brave pileups that my 5 watt Argonaut II cannot
break. The antenna is not very efficient on 80 meters, but I still make
plenty of contacts on it, especially with 100 watts. On 40 and above,
it works very well, and I have been able to work a fair amount of DX,
including some of the South Pacific DXpeditions, even with 5 watts. I
am not sure how I did that, as there are plenty of obstructions in the
way of that propagation path. I sure would like to be able to put up a
decent array of towers and beams, but that is not possible on this lot.
I do have a tower with 6 and 2 meter beams on it, but it is too close
to the lot line for anything bigger.
I quit using the mast mounted vertical here due to lightning concerns,
but this ground mounted vertical works well enough to keep be active,
and the amount of effort needed to install it was not more than a few
weekends. With those biodegradable staples, the radials disappeared in
a matter of months, and are now invisible, I have not hit any of the
radials with the lawn mower using this system. For those of us on
limited budgets, and with modest space, trap verticals, with some care
can do a fine job.
73,
Steve WA9JML
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