Thomas, I have similar soil - caliche on top of limestone. I could fit about a 480' run towards EU on my lot. I drilled a hole in the limestone for a ground rod, and backfilled it with Bentonite clay. I also added several ground straps (not wire but 4' wide strap) out about 10' from the ground rod. The straps seemed to lessen the noise and improve the signal to noise ratio - strictly an anecdotal observation but I thought it was worth the effort, and did the same thing on another shorter beverage toward JA.
73 John N5CQ -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Thomas Sent: Sunday, January 23, 2011 7:47 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Topband: Beverage ground rod substitute All of this talk about a short Beverage antenna has me thinking I just might be able to install one 250-280' E-W wire. One issue would be the ground rod. The earth here is Caliche which is quite similar in properties to concrete, so I can't drive a ground rod into it. I've thought about using short buried radials like I do with my K9AY, but the Beverage termination points will be in the extreme corners of my lot. Any ideas what could be substituted and might work as well as the simple ground rod earth? It is funny I find myself attempting to make the proverbial silk purse from the sow's ear! Tnx, Thomas - AC7A (Tucson) _______________________________________________ UR RST IS ... ... ..9 QSB QSB - hw? BK _______________________________________________ UR RST IS ... ... ..9 QSB QSB - hw? BK
