Experimental vertical antenna - elevated radials

Vertical wire aside the mast

I got some comments on my vertical from PG0DX Henry. He told me I probabely should try to elevate the radials. It is a very good idea and I now remember that if you use ground radials you nee a lot of them to actually have good results with it. Using elevated radials will improve gain with just a few of them. Even a few cm above the ground will help. N6LF Rudy described it in a very interesting paper.



So now the practical side of the radials, the problem is "room". I can elevate the radials but not permanent since it is my garden and there are other members of the family walking there as well. It is winter now so there is not much to do in the garden so just for a experiment I have elevated the 5 radials. I'm just curious how this works.

Base of my tower

On the photo at the left you see the autotuner below the plastic bag. After all the water in the tuner last year I don't take any risks anymore. The wooden block is for separating the radials from the grounded mast.


I've been testing before sunset with a interval from about 5 minutes. So far I don't see much difference in RX but in TX it is worse except at Henry's QTH but he's also receiving with the vertical. Of course this would be normal since the vertical should be worse since the angle of radiation is too low for Europe stations. The comparisation is estimated since propagation can change in those 5 minutes.




Some comparisations:

TX  (5W)             Inverted-V    Vertical                 RX                    Inverted-V      Vertical
DL3ANK              -17               -24                        MW0GSR        -08                   -07
ES2HV                  -04               -03                       DL5ZG             -16                   -16
SM2SUM               00                -11
G3SEP                   00                -09
M0ORH                -12               -22
M0TRP                 -14               -20
SM5FOQ              +9                -03

I had to wait to late in the evening to do a DX comparisation. But unfortunately propagation was not in my favour. I didn't see much north american stations at all to compare antennas. Only one at RX and one Argentinian station.

TX (5W)          Inverted-V     Vertical                     RX            Inverted-V      Vertical
PG0DX/1          -09                -08                            K1HTV     -15                   -16
SM5FQQ          -08                +2                             LU8ENU   -22                   -23
GM0HUU          00                -08
TA4/G8SCU     -20                -08

The thing is that both antennas receive equally but TX is much more difference. Although I was not spotted at DX (say about 5000km or more). I'm not really impressed!

I'm shure a vertical does well if placed completely free or near water with much more elevated radials may be. Henry is using a vertical with 10 elevated radials. He told me he just finished a FT8 QSO to ZL with only 1W QRP on 60m. Of course thats not only the antenna but the propagation as well.