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"Richard Harrison" wrote in message ... Walter Maxwell, W2DU wrote: "Do you think any soil characteristics could be determined by such data?" Kraus has an interesting figure, No. 11-20 on page 305 of his 1950 edition of "Antennas". It is the feedpoint resistance versus height in wavelengths over perfect ground (a copper sheet?) of a resonant 1/2-wave dipole. It varies from zero ohms at zero height to a maximum of about 100 ohms at 0.35 wavelength above ground. The resistance settles down to just above 70 ohms at infinite height (free space radiation resistance value). Clean dry sand may be a very good insulator. If it were deep enough, a dipole lain on it might have a feedpoint of about 70 ohme. Better soil conductivity might shift the drivepoint of the dipole to a lower resistance as the Kraus figure indicates for perfect ground next to the dipole. Several measurements at slightly different locations and times may need to be made and averaged for reliable results. The curve in Fig. 11-20 oscillates around the free space radiation resistance so that at some altitudes feedpoint resistance goes down as altitude increases. One would need to know which part of the curve the measured resistance fell upon. Walt may be on to something with his method for determining earth constants. There are so many broadcast stations in the USA that soil conductivity has been already determined in nearly all areas. For unknown areas, one could lay out radial paths from existing stations and measure feild strengths along the radial at several places and see how much more attenuation there is versus the "unattenuated" values expected and determine average ground conductivity by the loss added by the ground. Best regards, Richard Harrison, KB5WZI Richard, your indication that the dipole input resistance of 100 ohms at 0.35 wavelength above ground is interesting, in that if you look at Kraus' graph of mutual impedance of parallel side-by-side radiators in his Fig 10-12, Page 266, you can see the reason for this. At this height above ground the the dipole is spaced 0.7 wavelengths from its image in the perfect ground plane. The mutual resistance at this spacing is -24.8 ohms, as shown in Fig 10-12 and in Table 10-1 on Page 267. Table 10-1 also shows the self resistance minus the mutual resistance at this spacing to be 97.9 ohms. There is the approximate 100 ohms shown in the graph of Fig 11-20. Note that 97.9 - 24.8 = 73.1 ohms, the nominal resistance of a thin half-wave dipole in space. Of course this data relates only to the condition of perfect ground, with total reflection and no attenuation. I would hope that the delta R and delta X values vs height taken from my measured data might shed some light on the ground conductivity and permittivity under my antenna. My soil is very sandy. Knowing that, the delta values might show some tendency to verify that condition. Walt, W2DU |
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