Minimum Ground Radial Wire Thickness ?

[K9KJM]

As pointed out, It is mechanical strength that counts. Around here even #14 gauge gets cut and broken pretty easy....

So I try to use heavier bare copper if possible. (Commercial AM broadcast stations used #10 soft bare copper wire) Which may be overkill for a ham station. IF you can keep folks from digging it up and cutting it, Frost heaving stones and breaking it, The thinnest wire available would function OK. The cost of wire has pretty much dictated what size I used over the years. When I had a few bucks extra and copper prices were lower, I used heavier wire than when copper is out of sight high priced and I have little spare cash!

(I use bare copper to add to the DC ground for lightning protection). As also pointed out, In ground or on ground radials will detune with varying moisture in the ground anyhow, So there is no point to "tuning" them like you can do with elevated radials. Just make them longer than 1/4 wave at your lowest operating frequency, If possible.

(Some of the best prices I have found over the years was common copper insulated wire in 500 foot spools from a discount home supply store.
Last I checked was 30 some bucks for a 500 foot spool of 14 gauge. It is a very simple matter to unroll some, tie one end to a tree and just walk along it with a handi knife to strip off the plastic insulation.)

Most of my radial wire installation was done years ago before I discovered how good and easy the "self bury" works by just laying wire in short mown grass and holding it down with home made "staples"

[VK4TI]

Just this week I redid my ground system in the back yard , I bought a 7kg roll of 1mm stainless mig wire and laid it into slits cut in the lawn etc at what ever would fit back to a central pont , the rx and tx did improve quite a bit so maybe the worms are not as warm ?

[M0AUW]

Here's a link to a simple 30 meter vertical I built a while back for portable work which might help re ground radials:
The Morse Sagas
I can quickly lay down 20 ground radials, I've used some old telephone cable and it seems to do the job.
Regards

Dickie M0AUW

[WA3MOJ]

.

I will try out the 23' monopole and AH-4 tuner this weekend as portable with 12 - 33' ground radial wires.
Let's see what happens and go from there.

Any thoughts on working 80M with this setup?

.

[N0AZZ]

It makes no difference if the wire is insulated or not all of mine is insulated for my Hy Gain AV-18HT Hy Tower have 82 radials 1/4 wl for all bands 10-160m stapled to the ground. It is my best 80m antenna that i have and I do have several for that band. Do not forget a ground rod for my Hy Tower it calls for 6 8' ones and I have all of them very important. On my AH-4 that I use portable for my IC-9100 and IC-703 Plus I use 1 8' ground rod a must have and 12 33' radials and 8 60' ones. I have found that rolling and unrolling them tends to cause breakage of the smaller wire sizes so the smallest I use is 14 ga stranded insulated. I have very good coverage 10-80m with this arrangement and if the longer radials need to be bent in a smaller area that's fine also the radios work FB on 80m at night and for daytime short range ecomm use.

[WA3MOJ]

. . . . .On my AH-4 that I use portable for my IC-9100 and IC-703 Plus I use portable for my IC-9100 and IC-703 Plus I use 1 8' ground rod a must have and 12 33' radials and 8 60' ones. I have found that rolling and unrolling them tends to cause breakage of the smaller wire sizes so the smallest I use is 14 ga stranded insulated. I have very good coverage 10-80m with this arrangement and if the longer radials need to be bent in a smaller area that's fine also the radios work FB on 80m at night and for daytime short range ecomm use.

What antenna do you use when "portable" and how tall ?