Bill has overstated the "generally accepted" number of radials. AM broadcast
stations will have 120 radials but I've never met a ham with that many and
many thousands of us have worked the world with a lot fewer. It depends
greatly on the quality of ground you have and that's not easy to determine
before you begin. But after 8 radials, improvements with each additional
radial become much smaller.

My advice, Gary, is to start with a few radials for each band and try it
out. Here's the irony: if that works well, you will probably see an
improvement if you double the number of radials. If it doesn't work well at
all, you might try a different approach because adding more radials will not
be too effective.

Nature is full of these ironies. My favorite is that when bread and crackers
are exposed to the same environment, the bread becomes hard and the crackers
become soft! (Posted on someone's door at Stanford Research Institue back in
the 60's.)

Chuck

"Bill Turner" wrote in message
...
On 20 Jun 2004 13:52:17 GMT, (AA5QT) wrote:

I have a 6BTV that I'm about to install. It will primarily be used for
80/40/30 meters. Some questions:

I could elevate it, if it would improve performance. The manual says not
to
ground the radials or the antenna base, so I could mount the unit on an
insulated mast, and string the radials at a 45 degree angle....

Or I could place it near the ground, or try a metal mast, or....

Any experience/suggestions?

Gary K5QT

__________________________________________________ _______

Performance will be best if it's up in the air, away from ground. RF
does best when flowing through metal, not dirt. Earth is lossy and
should be avoided for transmitting. If you were receiving only, the
loss could be made up by more gain in the receiver, but when power is
lost during transmitting, it's gone forever.

If for some reason you 'had' to mount the vertical at ground level, you
should install enough radials that the antenna does not 'see' the earth
at all, only the radials. To do this, the generally accepted number of
radials is about 120, 1/4 wave long.

--
Bill, W6WRT
QSLs via LoTW