KL5RK "Newbie" question about setting up 4BTV ground plane

[2ofeverything]

Hello again, I finally got my General, KL5RK, and feel like a "Virgin" all over again! Meaning, I don't know what I am doing!!! I bought all this gear, now broke:-(. My wife of 23 years is just happy I am sober! And now I want to make the most of what I have. I live in S.E. Alaska (Petersburg, 99833) , I know may be overthinking things, but as this is my new hobby, I really want to get the max performance for my budget setup. Kenwood TS450s, LDG pro tuner 2, 4BTV and LMR400. mmckenna and prcguy helped me a lot already and great advice! I really wish I could do the "Chicken wire" but the diameter of the area I have is only 22' across about 150' from the shoreline(saltwater), the soil is silty/clay and wet 80/90% of the time. I read a little about inline loading coils, not sure how to go about doing DIY stuff as money wise I am at the "Duct tape/Baling wire" stage. I also have a 36' metal shop that is 12' from the center of the ground mount point. I thought about roof mount, but will be putting tilted solar panels on the shop. The metal roof is old and don't think the metal corrugated panels will be solidly contacted, running a long braid ground is doable, but will the solar panels be a problem? So, just want all the bands to be as Happy as I can get them, I think from my location the 20/40 meter are what I want to hopefully address, again TOTAL Newb! Thank you in advance, Joe KL5RK.

 

[mtindor]

Hello again, I finally got my General, KL5RK, and feel like a "Virgin" all over again! Meaning, I don't know what I am doing!!! I bought all this gear, now broke:-(. My wife of 23 years is just happy I am sober! And now I want to make the most of what I have. I live in S.E. Alaska (Petersburg, 99833) , I know may be overthinking things, but as this is my new hobby, I really want to get the max performance for my budget setup. Kenwood TS450s, LDG pro tuner 2, 4BTV and LMR400. mmckenna and prcguy helped me a lot already and great advice! I really wish I could do the "Chicken wire" but the diameter of the area I have is only 22' across about 150' from the shoreline(saltwater), the soil is silty/clay and wet 80/90% of the time. I read a little about inline loading coils, not sure how to go about doing DIY stuff as money wise I am at the "Duct tape/Baling wire" stage. I also have a 36' metal shop that is 12' from the center of the ground mount point. I thought about roof mount, but will be putting tilted solar panels on the shop. The metal roof is old and don't think the metal corrugated panels will be solidly contacted, running a long braid ground is doable, but will the solar panels be a problem? So, just want all the bands to be as Happy as I can get them, I think from my location the 20/40 meter are what I want to hopefully address, again TOTAL Newb! Thank you in advance, Joe KL5RK.

A vertical typically picks up more noise (esp man made noise) than a horizontal antenna. Solar panel installations are known to be noisy, depending upon the vendor equipment. I'd say that the closer you put it to where solar panels and such are, the more likely you are to receive interference from them in the future.

If you ground-mount it, you really need to have a decent radial system laid out on the ground -- 16-32 radials, at least the length of the antenna itself If you are mounting it above ground (above a height where people will get hung by radials), you can use "tuned" radials -- 3 per band is best. Tuned radials are cut to very specific lengths depending upon the band you that the radial is for.

https://static.dxengineering.com/global/images/instructions/dxe-hsr-4btv-p3.pdf

With all of that said, I'd say the majority of hams (including myself), do the best we can with what we have. And in the end that is what you will have to do. But my recommendation at the least is to try and avoid as much man made interference as possible by keeping the antenna as far away from your house/solar panels and such. Poor performance because of lackluster/no radial installations is one thing. Poor receive performance from man made interference from household electronics is a major buzzkill and may just end up causing you to give up on it. So do your best to keep it as far away from noisemakers as possible.

 

[WB5UOM]

Put it on a push up mast higher the better and cut 4 radials out of say #12 stranded for EACH band you want at 1/4 wavelength per band . attach one end of each the top ring on mast and fan them out at 90 degrees from each wire per band...use rope or whatever to extend each radial down at about 45 degrees out to convient tie points
They will also act as guys wires for the mast.
I did that in 1977 on my first station from Dallas Tx and on a Saturday afternoon got Vietnam on 20 meters

 

[2ofeverything]

Thank you, I could put it in the front yard and get the radials at least 16' long, but my neighbors satellite dish would be in line with it, would that affect their reception when I am operating?

 

[2ofeverything]

Put it on a push up mast higher the better and cut 4 radials out of say #12 stranded for EACH band you want at 1/4 wavelength per band . attach one end of each the top ring on mast and fan them out at 90 degrees from each wire per band...use rope or whatever to extend each radial down at about 45 degrees out to convient tie points
They will also act as guys wires for the mast.
I did that in 1977 on my first station from Dallas Tx and on a Saturday afternoon got Vietnam on 20 meters

I have a lot of deer that go through the yard at night, wondering if they would go around the array?

 

[mmckenna]

Noise with vertical antennas is an issue, but I'm betting in your area the noise floor isn't really that high. Probably not many people here familiar with your area. Anyway, making horizontal wire antennas isn't hard, so adding one to your system wouldn't be difficult.

Saltwater makes an excellent ground plane, so antenna close to the water isn't a bad thing if you do it right. Probably some saltwater intrusion under your antenna area, so a few ground radials might work just fine.

Will be interested to see how this all works out for you. I'm not very active on HF. Have only recently been doing it for work on non-ham frequencies. Still a lot of fun.

 

[2ofeverything]

Noise with vertical antennas is an issue, but I'm betting in your area the noise floor isn't really that high. Probably not many people here familiar with your area. Anyway, making horizontal wire antennas isn't hard, so adding one to your system wouldn't be difficult.

Saltwater makes an excellent ground plane, so antenna close to the water isn't a bad thing if you do it right. Probably some saltwater intrusion under your antenna area, so a few ground radials might work just fine.

Will be interested to see how this all works out for you. I'm not very active on HF. Have only recently been doing it for work on non-ham frequencies. Still a lot of fun.

I can definitely do a 40/80 meter dipole along the back of the property running east/west giving me the N/S path, as long as these big Alaska blackbirds don't have a family gathering on the antenna then just add a two way antenna switch? There is a retired HAM here that has an 80M dipole he might sell me. So far sounds like just run about 32/ 12' radials, but do you think it will affect my neighbors satellite reception if it is in between their dishes southern angle? it would be about 50' away. Otherwise it will be in the back yard about 12' from the "Metal" shop.

 

[mmckenna]

I remember most of those ravens and bald eagles were really well fed. They'd put some hurt on your antenna.

Making your own 80 meter dipole would be really easy. Look online for plans. Wire and some PVC pipe insulators is all you need. Should be just a few bucks and most parts you can fabricate yourself.

Antenna/radials should not be an issue for the satellite antenna. Different bands, and a thin vertical antenna is going to be invisible to the dish.

 

[prcguy]

Radials laying on the ground are no longer tuned, so cutting them to a specific length is a waste of time. If you have limited space for ground radials then install the longest you can get away with and the more the better. There has been a lot of testing over the last 100yrs or so and for a ground screen its not necessarily the amount of radials that is most efficient, its the spacing between them at the tips and its been determined that using enough radials to keep them no more than .02 wavelengths apart at the tips is good. That means the longer you make the radials the more you will need to keep that .02 wavelength spacing

On the chicken wire topic here is a great article that tested various shapes and amounts of ground screen with resulting efficiency and I believe a ground screen out of chicken wire or metal cloth will give you the best performance for a small plot of ground.

http://www.sherweng.com/documents/GroundScreen-sm.pdf

 

[2ofeverything]

I remember most of those ravens and bald eagles were really well fed. They'd put some hurt on your antenna.

Making your own 80 meter dipole would be really easy. Look online for plans. Wire and some PVC pipe insulators is all you need. Should be just a few bucks and most parts you can fabricate yourself.

Antenna/radials should not be an issue for the satellite antenna. Different bands, and a thin vertical antenna is going to be invisible to the dish.

Cool, now if my wifes ok with the front yard, I think the easiest and quickest way is just a bunch of ground radials for the 10/15/20M and build a 40/80M dipole, most of these Ravens really don't sit to long or together. pretty noisy when they want to be!!

 

[2ofeverything]

Radials laying on the ground are no longer tuned, so cutting them to a specific length is a waste of time. If you have limited space for ground radials then install the longest you can get away with and the more the better. There has been a lot of testing over the last 100yrs or so and for a ground screen its not necessarily the amount of radials that is most efficient, its the spacing between them at the tips and its been determined that using enough radials to keep them no more than .02 wavelengths apart at the tips is good. That means the longer you make the radials the more you will need to keep that .02 wavelength spacing

On the chicken wire topic here is a great article that tested various shapes and amounts of ground screen with resulting efficiency and I believe a ground screen out of chicken wire or metal cloth will give you the best performance for a small plot of ground.

http://www.sherweng.com/documents/GroundScreen-sm.pdf[

So if I just start out with doing radials maxed at 12' and you said .02 wave length at the tips, what's that come out to in inches?

 

[prcguy]

Here is a newer presentation on ground screens and one of the closing comments is "limited space? Use a ground screen."

https://www.dj0ip.de/app/download/5794509170/NC0B-GndScrn9a_pn.pdf

 

[2ofeverything]

From the article, sounds like he did a combo of radials and wire? I think the four legged critters will tear up any mesh wire. I am not fenced in and the deer pretty much go where they want.

 

[2ofeverything]

Here is a newer presentation on ground screens and one of the closing comments is "limited space? Use a ground screen."

https://www.dj0ip.de/app/download/5794509170/NC0B-GndScrn9a_pn.pdf

The 25' x 5' would work, just would need to sort out how to keep the deer hooves from tearing it up.

 

[2ofeverything]

A vertical typically picks up more noise (esp man made noise) than a horizontal antenna. Solar panel installations are known to be noisy, depending upon the vendor equipment. I'd say that the closer you put it to where solar panels and such are, the more likely you are to receive interference from them in the future.

If you ground-mount it, you really need to have a decent radial system laid out on the ground -- 16-32 radials, at least the length of the antenna itself If you are mounting it above ground (above a height where people will get hung by radials), you can use "tuned" radials -- 3 per band is best. Tuned radials are cut to very specific lengths depending upon the band you that the radial is for.

https://static.dxengineering.com/global/images/instructions/dxe-hsr-4btv-p3.pdf

With all of that said, I'd say the majority of hams (including myself), do the best we can with what we have. And in the end that is what you will have to do. But my recommendation at the least is to try and avoid as much man made interference as possible by keeping the antenna as far away from your house/solar panels and such. Poor performance because of lackluster/no radial installations is one thing. Poor receive performance from man made interference from household electronics is a major buzzkill and may just end up causing you to give up on it. So do your best to keep it as far away from noisemakers as possible.

Thank you, I like the Deer that run around, but I wish I could do the design of the radials and ground mesh combined, but like you said I will make the most of what I can and really do appreciate everyone sharing their real world experience! I will hopefully have this up and running as soon as it thaws out up here! Just want to get a game plan in order and have all the parts and pieces as it is a challenge sometimes to get materials where I am at.

 

[prcguy]

The 25' x 5' would work, just would need to sort out how to keep the deer hooves from tearing it up.

Scrape down a few inches and use the large staples made to hold down ground cloth on the chicken wire then cover back up. Or dump a load of small river rocks on it. Or shoot the deer and eat them.

 

[2ofeverything]

Ha Ha, trust me, I have a .270 ready to go! I have a box of 200 lawn staples for the radials, so that would also pin down the mesh. If I go with the sturdier coated panel wire at 25'x5' I think that would be a pretty good start with the radials underneath. Really cools articles you sent, I saved them to my thumb drive and will print out some pages for reference once I get going, many thanks again Sir!! By this summer I hope to post some pictures, stay warm! Stay safe!

 

[mitbr]

Ha Ha, trust me, I have a .270 ready to go! I have a box of 200 lawn staples for the radials, so that would also pin down the mesh. If I go with the sturdier coated panel wire at 25'x5' I think that would be a pretty good start with the radials underneath. Really cools articles you sent, I saved them to my thumb drive and will print out some pages for reference once I get going, many thanks again Sir!! By this summer I hope to post some pictures, stay warm! Stay safe!

I have the 4btv have been using it for over 10 years works very well. Make sure to put some naolox conductive grease to prevent galling of joints when putting it together.
Tim

 

[2ofeverything]

I have the 4btv have been using it for over 10 years works very well. Make sure to put some naolox conductive grease to prevent galling of joints when putting it together.
Tim

Would copper anti seize work? It is what I have now, but could order the other if need be?

 

[mitbr]

Would copper anti seize work? It is what I have now, but could order the other if need be?

I know your in Alaska I got mine at Home Depot...don't know if copper anti seize will work to prevent galling in aluminum.
Tim