I appreciate the effort.
Perhaps one day I can visit and you can tell me about the things you have tried and worked well.
Am reading about a lot of antenna types.
The hex beam looks like a project I could try.
Have you ever tried one?

Clyde, first and foremost, I would say here, you are surrounded by people that know a great deal about antennas as well as many other things concerning ham radio. Most likely a lot more than I do...

That said, my best advice, when considering any antenna would be the location and not let things like trees keep you from the location. No metal roofs is something different, except when you are considering use of a ground mounted vertical type antenna. You can use the metal roof in that case to your and the antenna's advantage.

As for a Dipole, while a lot of people use G5RV's and have good results, personally I think and the only reason I think this is because I have used one. Really they offer only one, maybe two advantages in my opinion. That is being multi-banded and you only need the one antenna. Mulit band is the only thing and the fact they're good for limited space or dealing with Crappy HOA's who get bent over antenna's.
Other than those two things, they're just good for listening as far as I am concerned, yea people have good luck with them but who needs good, anyone can accomplish good. What I wanted was the Best...

That being said, Give me a single band antenna that is cut for the band I want to be on and middle of that band and frequencies I wanted to work.
My favorite bands is where I want my antenna's to be.

Right now, I using one antenna for several bands because of a few issues, one and the major reason is my health. I am using my ground mounted vertical for HF and I am using a 4 element beam on 2 meters. That's it. but at the other location and because it was years ago, I had many antenna's up and in place. I had a Tri-Bander up, 13B2, 11 Element 440, 6 meter ground plain, I had a 160 meter dipole cut for 160 meters, I had a 15 meter dipole cut for the band, I had a 10 meter vertical up, and a 10 meter dipole up, we even had a 12 meter rotating dipole up.

Here's the thing, and this is where a lot of hams will disagree but this is my finds my opinion only, the better the grounding, the better the antenna's are grounded, the better your station is grounded the better you will hear, the better you will transmit. A lot of hams do not consider the importance of grounding their stations. They don't see it as necessary and often they just don't do it.

Dealing with a ground mounted vertical, you are going to learn about radials, I mean it's just a given.
From what I read anything less than say around 134 radials is about a waste of time. Sure some or a few radials work, I only have 16 radials down right now myself and I doubt I change that any time soon. But I do have a lot of ground rods driven in. Right now I have 20 ground rods in place and I will have 20 more sometime. 6 foot ground rods in some case, 4 foot in some cases and 2 pipes driven in because I ran out of rods. At any rate, you can see I believe in grounding, even when Hy-Gain says it's not necessary I did it anyways. Because I know first hand that grounding pays off...It might sound excessive but considering soil and location, I think grounding is absolutely necessary. Soil being a huge huge factor!

Oh and don't believe what you hear about ground mounted verticals, they work but they're not a good antenna for close up work. From my experience and I have ran a ground mounted vertical since the 90's is that they are extreme long range DX antenna's. 450 miles, 900 miles even a 1000 miles you are going to get good to fair results but 2000 miles, 4000 miles you are going to get better results.

That is if you have paid close attention to your radial system. Me I am cheap, I will work a ground grid out the cheapest and best I can for the least amount of money and I really don't care what it looks like because in a short time it's going to be buried into the earth. I don't care how it's connected as long as my meter, ohm meter shows a good connections. I have soldiered and clamped and even drilled and screwed down ground cables.

So that is my best advice, pay attention to grounding, and while a lot and I mean a lot of people will disagree, forget the grounds I will ground and I will talk DX with less than a 100 watts, they can run 3kw and I can talk just as far as they do with a barefooted radio. In most cases, I can talk a lot further! Have done it and continue to do it. Not every time but in most cases...

Best advice pay attention to your grounding! Not just for transmissions but for your very own safety and your equipment's safety. I am by far the best example of a ham, I goof, make mistakes on the air, often times I open mouth and engage foot. Sometimes and again this has a lot to do with my health problems and medications, I say stuff I really shouldn't but when it's all said and done I do not mean any harm towards anyone, the people who know me, know me personally and understand my problems understand that. They know my intentions are good even though sometimes I come off the wrong ways to others, I don't mean to, just a little FYI there Clyde.
Here's something else...

I would never ever tell anyone something that might hurt them or cause them to tare up something in their shack. I am a firm believer in grounding and stand by that. I wouldn't ever sell or trade someone something I knew was broken without telling them, if I did, I never meant too, I just did not know it. Things like that happen, the thing is, I have a real tendency to open mouth engage both feet, so keep in mind the boy just ain't right! LOL

The thing here is, grounding, be sure to pay attention to your shack, your antenna's RF is dangerous it can kill electronics, it can kill you. If you look about you, start reading about the Hams who are now silent keys a lot die from cancer. I am not saying that their hobby did that to them but if you think about being bombed by radio waves daily, yearly for many years, I'd reckon that we're like Baked tators in micorwaves! Not a doctor, but it does make you wonder!

Remember, RF that stays in the shack is RF that is not being transmitted, it's a waste! The RF that leaves the shack, it's leaving our air on a millions of years journey!

Nothing man made has ever lasted as long as A Radio Transmission! Get your antenna right, be part of that journey!

Good luck!
Peace and 73
GOD BLESS!

Good morning Chuck,
Thank you for the reply. The advice is greatly appreciated.
I have a 8 ft copper coated ground rod with less than 6 feet of large copper wire to my ham shack.
At the ground mounted vertical there is another 8 ft rod connected to the radial connecting plate.
You mention 20 ground rods. Are they placed at the end of the radials?
I have three questions.
1. Is there a good reason to NOT ground the shield of the coaxial cable at the base of a ground mounted vertical antenna?
2. What effect does the distance above ground have on the ground mounted vertical antenna system?
3. What effect does radial length have on antenna tuning?
Any thoughts you have will be greatly appreciated.
73
clyde
kk4ywi

If I understand one of your questions correctly, right now I have 16 radials cut for each band they work for, such as 10,15,20 and 40 meters. 75 meters uses the top hat and no radials are needed in a ground mounted configuration. Basically, I have 2 radials for each band and starting at the mounting pipe, I ran the radials in a pattern and at the end of each radial I have one 4 foot ground rod driven straight into earth. I attached ea, radial to ea rod. I used Bent copper 10 gauge wire and made yard staples to help secure the radials down onto the earth. At the base of the antenna, I clamped the wires down in a temp fashion because when I am able and get to feeling better I will go back and soldier each radial together and securely mount them to the base pipe.

Total out I have 20 ground rods, At the base of the antenna, I have 3 rods and one pipe, I ran out of rods so I used some mast pipe I had that was cut about 6 feet long as the last ground. Those 3 rods are right at the base and are not part of the radial system until they come in contact with the BASE PIPE the antenna is mounted. Each of those 3 have 10 gauge wire that connect back onto the mast. I coiled them into one turn coils, for neatness more than anything else, I guess, just how the brain works. Still need a lot of work out there and when I can, my friend will come back and help me when I am able.

Okay for the Shield of Coax, Here's how I see it, the SO-239 is part of the base as it has Nothing insulating it from the antenna base mounting so in this case, I do not ground the shield because it already is grounded by all those radials,mast pipe and so on.

That said in this case, then center is insulated and is not grounded near as I can see it...maybe I am mistaken on that but If it was then it would be a dead short.

If I took my ohm meter and checked the shield on coax and touched the base mast pipe it shows continuity right there and I get a tone.
A good strong tone, so it would have to be grounded very well.

Just for kicks I have tried all sorts of heights with this antenna, and with this antenna this is what I get...

If you raise the antenna Feed point over 12 inches from earth the SWR goes out of sight on my meter. At 30 feet it just will not work without radials, or anything above 18 inches for that matter, I have played with it around 18 inches and got some different results depending on the humidity.

I am not sure how they get all those lengths for radials as math is not a strong suit with me. I used what they recommended for mounting the antenna on a mast pipe up in the air say around 30 feet but then is it still a ground mounted vertical?

Seems to me it would be called something else, like a vertical as raising it changes the antenna altogether.

Mine is mounted 12 inches off the ground at the feed point basically, they use the mounting surface as the measuring point, for stop and start.

So actually in this case the feed or coax in is really closer to the earth than what you would think.

I have owned 2 different ground mounts and both of them pretty much required the same setups as they very well should as they both are basically the same thing.

Years ago, I had the Hy-gain up in the air with radials at around 50 feet and really I couldn't tell any improvements over the height and just ground mounting it and using the same radial system, hence the reasoning I did it all over again here at the new QTH.

A danged site easier for me at this age to just ground mount a ground mounted vertical, seems to me it just defeats the intention to mount it in any other configuration.

As for radial length, here again this is just what I saw, I could see no differences in SWR with or without radials with this antenna. Where you adjust SWR is the length of the antenna and including the spacing of the coils it uses.

It has a 1st coil, 10 meters, then 2nd for 15 and a 3rd for 20 and some ways or another it gets 40 by adding all that together. 75 meters is achieved by the Top hat and it's own coil. When you build the antenna you are careful to measure starting at 10 meters and going through each step until you get to the end of the antenna.

Trust me, this is not an easy task as you put the antenna up, take the antenna down over and over until you get the SWR you are happy with and it took me total of about 2 weeks of measuring to get it where it is now. Tinkering when I was able to do it...tinkering with each band over and over...

Still not happy with 20 at all but I will get it one day...


Hope this helps some, not sure how but hope it does!

Best regards, 73
GOD BLESS

Here's a brief hop pattern I have noticed using the ground mount, I have talked to Germany when I couldn't talk to Ohio. I have talked to New Zealand when I couldn't talk to Belize. I have talked to Central and South America when I couldn't talk to South Carolina. The other day, I talked to Russia and couldn't talk to stations in Texas but was being heard in California. Seems the further it is the better it works or so it seems...

Basically from what I am seeing the 1st hop seems to be over 1k miles or that is how it seems since I been keeping up with it.

A couple of nights ago, I tried for 2 hours to work one station calling from Belize but because of pile ups and the hop I wasn't able too but I was being heard with a 20 over S9 in New Zealand...isn't that wild how Radio Signals bounce and hop around?

I just got that from my log...

God Bless!

Thank you again for the reply.
First - you say radials for each band. Are these 1/4 wave length for the band?



My vertical is a home brewed one. This is the radial connecting plate at the bottom of the mounting pole.



It has a capacitance hat at the top.
Have tried adjusting the height but have not come up with a good band match for it yet.
It seems to have the best swr on 15 meters.

73
clyde
kk4ywi