All,

I have been using an 80 meter loaded vertical for a couple of years with
moderate success. The ground system is a dozen 'untuned' radials 40 or so feet
laying on the ground. The feed line is about 100 feet of RG-8 coax. The SWR in
the shack is about 1.1 to 1.

I have done some research on the antenna and based on it parameters it should
have a radiation resistance of about 4 Ohms. This says that the coil and ground
are absorbing on the order of 45 Ohms. This is 10db performance loss.

I have limited space and the most common solutions are not available to me. From
a practical perspective it would seem to me that building a 40 foot center feed
loaded dipole and putting it in the attic or on the roof would probably perform
somewhat better.

Is this a reasonable assumption?

Would burying the radials and connecting them to several 4 square foot buried
screens substantially help the ground system?

Thanks,
Dan kb0qil