Do Radials Steer Your Signal?

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[outbacktraveller]

GerDay Mate,

My name is Indy and call is VK2XB. I have more or less 4 1/2 decades of observations of this phenomena

Lemme explain. I have been what you Americans call an Over The Road Truck Driver (we just call it long distance - or simply, "truckie") for about 4 1/2 decades - and an Amateur for about the same period of most of which I have operated mobile on most bands, but primarily on HF. My (current) truck has 2 trailers and is only about 27 Metres in length, by 2.4 Metres wide, by about 3.9 Metres high. The vast majority being steel and/or aluminium, although some of the cabin is fibreglass.

I dunno how to upload photos in a comment (or even if you can), so I'll just try to explain the disposition of antennas, PARTICULARLY what I use on HF. The antenna I use (currently) for 80, 40, 30, 20, 17, 15, 12 and 10 Metres is a Codan 9350, which is a commercially made device, originally designed for the Royal Flying Doctor Service, the military and "Outback"/"Outstation" radio - and is extremely robust and frequency agile. It's mounted on the bull bar of the truck on the left hand (passenger, for us) side. I pay a tremendous amount of attention to RF bonding to ensure as effective RF continuity as possible. This both reduces noise, in my opinion, and makes for a far more efficient antenna SYSTEM (as the antenna cannot be regarded in isolation to the rest of the vehicle). I operate ACTUALLY mobile (and not what most call mobile, which is essentially stationary or portable), so I have been observing (as has many thousands of Amateur over God knows how many contacts) for the vast majority of that 45 years.

Of course, terrain does play a part, as does green foliage, whether there's iron stone underneath you and many, many other factors, however overwhelmingly the predominant observation is up to about 3 "S" points variation between the strongest direct (behind me, over my right shoulder) and in front over the top of the antenna. Off to either side tends to be somewhere between maximum signal and minimum. These sorts of observations have been made by myself and those I talk to every day of the week.

I don't have a set route, but I do often cover the same territory and these observations have been generally consistent, although, quite obviously, conditions and propagation on the hour and the day have an impact, however these are observed against many, many individuals at known locations just about every single day of the week.

Now, I'm just a dumb truck driver and don't claim to be particularly conversant with all sorts of theory, engineering practices and I've never truthfully had time to make precise notes (as I have a living to earn at my real job, and I get paid on productivity), however these observations remain extremely consistent over a considerable period of time and many have been made by people highly qualified in electronics .... not just myself.

There are a couple of circumstances that appear to ensure less dramatic variations, one of which appears to be if I'm on bitumen road (I think y'all call it asphalt) and it's very wet .... I guess that ground conductivity mitigates the effect of the large amount of counterpoise in the one direction. This is merely an educated guess on my part.

I'm not sure if this falls in line with what you've experienced here in this video, but it IS something that countless Amateurs seem to have noticed, over many of my trucks (I've worn I dunno how many .... out). I am not boasting when I say that almost everyone I talk with at some stage comments along the lines of the fact that I have ALWAYS got good signals on all bands, all the time, but they can actually report to me when I've changed direction whilst transmitting.

The information on my QRZ page is a little dated as I haven't had a chance to update it for probably 12 months, but you can see a few shots of my installation/vehicle size. There's even a short EweChube clip linked on it showing my disposition of radios and antennas - although it is NOT an install video as such!

Again - I generally do NOT "talk myself up" and boast, however it was relevant to mention that what I have works very well, simply as support to my contention about just how important a counterpoise CAN be!

Kindest regards

Indy

[glmn-ron]

It would be interesting to set up 5 antennas, with radials north, south, east, west and even all around and have the location where there is an even distribution of stations, middle of the USA (Where Kansas, Colorado, Nebraska all meet, go there next Steve) and run WSPR for a few days.

[gaptastic]

From what an old ham told me: A way to determine if ur feedline is being used as a counterpoise is to lift up the feedline (with an antenna analyzer on) and observe the swr. If SWR decreases, then yes, else no.

[steveallison]

Interesting video. Thanks! May be worth repeating with a couple hours of whisper in each configuration. That way you dont have to "catch" the fish, the fish are always listening (to completely torture an analogy).

[P.SeanCoady]

Yes nice job also remember that there is still a ground connection into the direction that has no radials. What one might say. Think theat there is still a conductive ground and you have a stake into it

[KAUPW]

Ohh
Watching now.. my experience is yes they will warp the signal in the desired direction

[thebnbaldwin]

I would expect that big metal box you operate in to have the most impact on signal blocking.

[N_Andrews]

I do this with my vehicle antennas using the vehicle as the ground plane and moving them to the rear of vehicle for foward rx/tx improvement.

[victorcharlie]

Even in the Rain it looks interesting, tnx Man!

[Siskiyous]

Everything affects everything but not by much

[shARyn]

I'm always getting contacts from South America -- more than from Europe, Asia, or Africa (mine are spread 360* with a Slight favorability to the east).. [[ ok, I'm also including Cuber and Mexico, but hey ... ]]

[robertmeyer]

interesting fun . I found the ground can make a big difference but going to a few parks. one I had to re tune a tad. and it went in sort of 1 direction better . due to hill . got better DX in one park. more ground elements does help from what I found. longer better on lower frequency like 40 meters. no sun bathing today . we got snow in NY. my antenna stands out. yellow coax . black pole with pink wire going up it. my ground wires are under snow now. still playing FT8 poker . I am using 12 meters and it's open for me. I have to change tune for 10 meters. hoping for some good DX as sun comes up. changing more south now. and later in the morning. 73's

[DonzLockz]

You didn't show us the third option by walking in the mud with boots.😂

[wlvradio]

Radials do steer your signals to some degree, pun intended!😅 At least that's my experience. Moreover, it is an easy way to get a bit of directivity, and it beats a tower and a rotator for simplicity! In comparison to an adjacent massive saltwater ground plane many wavelengths long, I doubt it would matter much, though I haven't had that opportunity yet... Great Videos; enjoy yourself and 73 DE W8LV BILL!

[KeepEveryGuessing]

Yeah, not "block" per se. Shade things a little, but not much. More effect the worse the ground conductivity is (and it's not bad where you are), but still not much. Which side the salt water is on probably had a bigger effect.

I don't get why people don't want the outside of the coax shield to contribute to your ground system. It's free., after all. It's not like it's elevated and needs to be resonant.

Yes, certainly, keep RF "out of the shack", but that's not the line isolator placement that's most effective at that. That big run of coax is in the antenna near field, and the transmitted signal will couple energy into it, on the other side of that line isolator placement. To keep RF out of the shack, put the isolator at entry panel (or radio end for POTS/Field Day).

For a dipole (or other balanced antenna) you may want an isolator at the feed point, for reasons of balance. But to keep RF out of the shack, you want another one at/near the radio end as well (unless that whole feed line is very perpendicular to the antenna E field for some significant distance).

Prove it to yourself: Use something like the MFJ-854 or MFJ-853 clamp on RF current meter (or poor man's equivalent by slipping a toroid over the coax, a small number of turns "secondary" connected to a detector, diode and capacitor, and a volt meter) to see that the feed end isolator leaves you with common mode signal at the radio.

[Frank_KFMH]

Hmm. As a statistician, I'd say that the opportunity cost from the South (far fewer hams on FT8) may well be why you obtained these results. Dale Ostergard N3HXZ has designed some experiments on this issue...QST/QEX rejected his paper as "unimportant." Not my opinion as this is a very frequent Q by hams operating portably. Cool video, TO!

[AngryBoar]

So the radials serve as a counter directional gain for the antenna?

[WilliamLee-ehhy]

Do you think nulls from your antenna pattern is a larger effect than radial pattern?. All vertical antennas have nulls in their pattern (not a purely symmetrical donut). Rotating the antenna radials rotates these nulls to a different direction. That might make you think the radials are "pulling" the RF in their direction. Did you notice any salt water effect on your signal? I go near the salt water a lot (Corpus Christi, Texas) and it makes a profound difference in both receive and transmit. The noise level goes to "0" but signals are heard loud and strong. Transmitted signal is like having a big RF amp on your radio.

[LeeMcc_KIYPR]

I get Brazil with FT8 on a regular basis. 🤷‍♂️

[AntDig]

Where did you get the choke from id like to buy one