Well Reg,

After years of harping on about your lack of a method, you rummage
this up:

On Mon, 20 Jun 2005 10:49:54 +0000 (UTC), "Reg Edwards"
wrote:
....
13. I have made HF measurements in other shaped containers, usually
smaller and plastic, with copper sheets for electrodes. Also in the
garden itself between radials and arrays of relatively short rods.
Any sort of measurements are more useful than none.

I don't see you asking Walt for his data to CONFIRM your method. I
don't see you doing any where near Walt's effort in building a sample
matrix of your own to test against your method to CONFIRM your method.
Validation seems to be an orphan in this discussion.

Some people say the only way to deternine soil characteristics is to
construct a 1/4-wave vertical antenna, feed it with 50 Kwatt at 500
KHz and measure field strength at 1 mile intervals for 100 miles. And
then do some calculations. Don't you believe it!

Bosh! Some people indeed. Your biology instruction in the British
school system apparently didn't teach you the difference between
people and straw-men.

The veiled suggestion of a result
10. Using classical transmission line formulae in reverse, the values
of line conductance G, capacitance C and hence permittivity K of the
"insulating" material, i.e., the soil, can be calculated.
is representative of an extremely thin veneer, ignoring the bulk that
is so easily found by using the antenna in situ - the method you
dismiss as unbelievable, and what is experienced every day by
absolutely every Amateur on "Earth."

Reg, it was a nicely scripted recipe. It contains well explained
methods. It attends practical issues of measurement. However, it
wholly lacks common sense when you reject what is already observable.
What you offer is minutia of an old wife's tale.

For method, any existing antenna's free-space characteristics is far
better understood and revealed through a model than what you offer.
And that antenna's free space Z characteristics compared against
measured in situ Z performance yield the solution of what contribution
local earth has to offer. Single point measurement of contaminated
soil samples has as little chance of doing the same as trying to
measure the ocean's capacity with a teaspoon.

73's
Richard Clark, KB7QHC