Beware of any inputs from this bialek guy! He appears to be either a troll
or
a blithering idiot. If you let him drag you into a discussion of his point
of view
he will lead you on endlessly and ignorantly!.

Irv VE6BP


"Szczepan Bialek" wrote in message
...

napisal w wiadomosci
...
I'm probably known as the anti-ground.. lol..
IE: I don't believe in RF grounds in the shack unless
the antenna is fed directly from the shack. Which
is fairly rare for me, but I have done it on 160m a
few times..
My way of thinking is that an RF ground should always
be a part of the antenna itself, preferably away from
the shack. IE: a dipole is a complete antenna, and
requires no ground for proper operation at the antenna,
or at the shack. You don't need an RF ground at all.

Your dipole is not the dipole but the monopole with the one radial.

In the case of a vertical, the RF ground should be
under the antenna if a monopole. IE: ground radials under
a ground mount, or elevated radials for a ground plane.

Your dipole is a horizontal monopole with the one radial.
The vertical monopole can have only one radial.

More radials is necessary for a strong stations.
Do you understand?

The only difference between your monopole and your vertical antenna is the
direction.
Do you agree?
S*

With either one of these, no RF ground is required for
the shack. Ditto for a half wave vertical, which is a
complete antenna. The only worry with it, is feed line
radiation, which is a bit different issue. It just needs
to be decoupled for the best operation.
But that is something to be considered with any antenna,
including the dipoles.

The only ground I use at the shack is the safety ground
for line voltage gear.. All lightning grounding must be
at the antenna/mast, and at the entrance to the shack.
"ground window".

I quit using a shack RF ground in the mid 90's or so..
Ain't missed it all at so far... I actually had more
issues when running high power "KW+" with a shack RF
ground vs not using one.

The use of the ground wire tuning may well help it work
better on certain bands to prevent a hot shack.
But I consider it a band aid to help hide problems that
actually should be addressed at the antenna. Or in a perfect
world at least..

BTW, I do not agree with the notion that an antenna needs to
be resonant. That is another wives tail, as pointed out by
Cecil. Even a dipole that is .05 WL long will radiate nearly
all power that is applied to it. And antennas are reciprocal
between radiating, and receiving.
The trick is getting the power to and from the small antenna
without it turning into heat. :/ There can be problems with
excess loss, but it's not the element's fault for being non
resonant.