DAMP clay soil is a fair conductor as far as AC grounds go. RF grounds are a another matter. The higher the freq. the more a good ground plane is needed. Most all vertical antennas will require some sort of ground system radials. If you bury the radials in good conducting soil, you can get by with shorter and fewer, the less conductive the soil the more & longer they need to be. If you use surface radials, they need to be able to match the antenna, giving a low swr. Rick Hiller may give more insite to the antenna counterpoise on a vertical. Robert
-----Original Message----- From: BVARC <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Mike Lambert via BVARC Sent: Wednesday, June 08, 2022 3:49 PM To: BRAZOS VALLEY AMATEUR RADIO CLUB <[email protected]> Cc: Mike Lambert <[email protected]> Subject: [BVARC] Soil composition and the need for radials Robert (KD5YVQQ) and any others, When you were out doing grounding work at my house (last August 2021), you remarked that the packed clay ground I had was very conductive. Question: Is it conductive enough that I could put up a Diamond BBTV or Hustler 5-BTV antenna in my back yard without redials? 73s, Mike KI5MIK ________________________________________________ Brazos Valley Amateur Radio Club BVARC mailing list [email protected] http://mail.bvarc.org/mailman/listinfo/bvarc_bvarc.org Publicly available archives are available here: https://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ ________________________________________________ Brazos Valley Amateur Radio Club BVARC mailing list [email protected] http://mail.bvarc.org/mailman/listinfo/bvarc_bvarc.org Publicly available archives are available here: https://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/
