Den,

All depends on whether soil surface layer is bone-dry, damp or wet sand, and
depth of water level if there is any.

The behaviour of an inverted-L antenna above 1 to N shallow-buried radials
can be studied with program ENDFEED.

For given antenna dimensions ENDFEED will also calculate the L and C
component values of L-match and T-match antenna tuners. Saves experimenting
time but takes some of the fun out of it. ;o)

Program EARTHRES estimates ground 'connection' loss resistance for rods,
arrays of rods, plates, and from 1 to any number of radials. One rod is
fairly useless unless you have a half-wavelength long antenna.

Download these two progs in a few seconds from website below and run
immediately.
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Regards from Reg, G4FGQ
For Free Radio Design Software
go to http://www.g4fgq.com
=======================


"Dennis Kaylor" wrote

and i am wondering how many radials i should put down?
i am in florida so the ground is sand
i plan on driving an 8 foot ground rod directly under the radiation
element and tieing the radials to it and also to the chainlink fence
that runs along the back(100feet) and along one side(50feet)
i was thinking of around 20-25 radials most of them would all be around
30 feet long
so my questions are

1) is there a deminisoning return on the number of radials?

2) is there a high voltage issue connecting to the fence?

3) would there be an increased noise level by tieing into the fence posts?

if you could please reply via email rather than the NG
thanks much