If you are really connected to the earth and the resistance of the earth is really infinite then your efficiency is zero and it has the same effect as if you only have a shielded wire connected to the radiator. But this is impossible in real life, but is you install a counterpoise that is resonant at your frequency then you may radiate well. Remember that antennas have directivity in both azimuth and elevation. Read the ARRL Antennna Book over and over until you understand it if you want a good antenna. Your efficiency from your antenna connector on depends on the resistance of your counterpoise connection, your counterpoise and the length of your radiator. You get full credit for the radiator from the feed point to the loading coil and some credit for the whip length but very little for the coil itself, maybe a bit less than the coil length. Antenna installations always obey Ohm's law and the other laws of physics whether you understand them or not. Whether you want to believe or not! Save your desire to believe for religion, they say it works! Willis 'Cookie' Cooke,TDXS Contest Chairman K5EWJ & Trustee N5BPS From: Al Lorona <alor...@sbcglobal.net> To: "elecraft@mailman.qth.net" <elecraft@mailman.qth.net> Sent: Monday, July 20, 2015 11:58 AM Subject: [Elecraft] Verticals on mountaintops [I've re-named this thread. Was 'Miniature self-supporting HF Antennas'.] When the ground is perfect, that's the best case for a vertical antenna. If the ground becomes worse than ideal, then the losses increase and performance is not as good and the pattern changes: less radiation to the horizon and higher takeoff angle. But then, if the ground continues to get worse -- let it become the worst case, an insulator with zero conductivity-- don't the losses go to zero again? And does the pattern go to more like an isotropic, or ...??? If the antenna does look more like it's in free space, then this would support the statement that there's radiation below the horizon from a vertical on a mountaintop. Al W6LX
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