Better Ground Radials for the Wolf River Coil
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- Опубликовано: 12 дек 2024
- I demonstrate an improved ground radial system for the Wolf River Coil Silver Bullet 1000
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#wolfrivercoil #wrc #groundradials #hamradio #amateurradio #SB1000 #SilverBullet1000 #hamharder
Thanks for showing the packaging for the charging clips. Been trying to figure out what those are called for awhile.
Thanks!
Thank you for your support! I really appreciate it
I like the 4 wire 1 clip approach. It will work for my restricted space vertical, and it is compact for POTA as well. Thanks for the idea.
Thank you! I just made my radials after watching your video and they work great and are super fast to put out and roll up.
Same here with the clips, but I use silicone jacketed wire. It's very pliable, almost never tangles (and when it does, it's so slippery, a light pull gets the tangle out), and it wraps very well on a Chameleon, SOTABeams, or similar winder. I also use 20ga wire, so I can bind 5-6 wires per clamp and be able to comfortable wrap around the winder. Third, while I have two bundles of 5m wires that work for general purpose situations, there are times when the quality of the ground requires that I use resonant radials. So I still keep 5-6 wire bundles cut for 10m, 12m, 15m and 17m in my bag. I found that even if you clip them to the tripod intermingle them with the 5m radials, even one bundle will improve some of the higher frequencies markedly. I've also found that the two bundles of 5m wires work just fine for 40m, though it's not a frequency I'm commonly on because of some of the local noise in that band.
Silicone wire is a great idea, that stuff is super flexible. I used 14ga stranded as that's what I have on hand.
I have bought 2 of his antennae. The quality is first class. He builds them with such precision that there is almost no reflection. And he returns emails when you have questions.
Right On Michael. I did the exact same thing. I use the WRC with 100' RG8X into the house. I added 8 sixteen footers to the existing 33' radials, pinned them and are all covered over in the grass. I alternate between the 17' whip (20 meters) and the standard whip with coil (40 meters) and have had exceptional results.
That video deserved a like and a comment! Nice video! I was getting ready to do the exact same thing but you have changed how I was going to build it. Your clip method is much simpler than what I planned to do. BTW, David Casler posted a video about ground radials. On it he said the sweet spot was .125 or 1/8 wave length with 8 radials giving a 1.9dB gain, 16 radials giving a 3.1dB gain, and 32 radials giving a 4.0dB gain, after that, the returns decreased rapidly. I believe the data came from the ARRL Antenna book. Thanks for the great video and simple design!!!
Thank you for all of your time and for sharing your first hand knowledge!
Over under is the best way to store and redeploy. I like that alligator clip idea you have. Very good spring tension. Thanks for sharing these helpful tips.
Over/under was drilled into me when I was in school. I even roll my garden hoses that way.
I hear so much about symetrical grounds run along the ground . but all it does is make a bunch of horizontal antennas that cancel each other out. If you only have a few going to one side it acts as a folded dipole and actually puts out a nice signal in a horizontal way. As long as it matches the coax the radio doesnt care if its a symetrical ground plane which radiates little or a horizontal radiator which gets out there.
I might have to look into doing this. Thanks for the information Michael! 73
Finally, someone who knows how to use the "over/under" technique for coiling up anything "coilable"...
Yes, however both Ham Radio Outlet and K8MRD’s channels have shown this as well.
Always used it. Makes a massive difference avoiding tangleness.
73 de M3KXZ
I've had the Over/Under technique drilled into me many years ago when I was in school. I even roll my garden hoses in that fashion.
My Over/Under video predates their's by about 7 years: ruclips.net/video/OvCN-OOxycE/видео.html
@@KB9VBRAntennas awesome, thanks for linking yours.
Good stuff as always
Keep the mission alive!
Thanks for the idea on using the alligator clips, Michael! I made a pig-tail with Anderson PowerPole connectors on each of the legs for the tri-pod for my Wolf River Coils Silver Bullet TIA. I connect each of the pig-tails to two radials each. Thanks for the good information on your channel!
many ways to skin a cat, I used power poles for my radials, used an extra nut to keep a short piece of wire with the PP connected to the leg at all times.
Good video
You continue to produce some of the best practical application and in situ operation videos on youtube. Please keep up the great work! The large alligator clips make a lot more sense compared to using banana plugs or power pole connectors.
I just bought silicone insulated wires on Amazon and there is no tangling between the wires. They slide apart easily to disperse in different directions. Thanks for the video.
I bought two of the Super Antenna set as I had an Amazon card. It is a bundle of five wires cut for 10m, 11m, 12m, 15m, and 17m. Combinations of those 1/4 wavelengths get 20m, 30m, 40m, and 80m.
On my Ultimax 80m-10m EFHW there is no difference in SWR when I am grounded at the feedpoint. There seems to be a slight improvement in performance.
I also use them with my Chameleon Emcomm III portable. There is a minor change in SWR with some bands slightly better or slightly worse, but slightly better performance on 80m. The Chameleon Emcomm III portable at 73ft radiator, 25ft counterpoise, and radials is still about 6dBr down from the 130ft long EFHW on 80m when operating NVIS.
Nice tunes.
thanks, Michael fantastic job you numero uno 73 from kb2uew
1) Do you insulate the distal ends of the radials? 2) What happens if you attach all of the distal ends of the radials together with a large circular wire? 3) Have you ever experimented with a capacitive hat for the WRC system? All the Best! 73 DE W8LV BILL
Thanks Michael. I’ll give them a try. Mel, K2JWD
Another GREAT video Michael! what kind or size of charging clips did you use?
Those are 10 amp clips. I know there's a shot of the package in the video if you need to see an exact part number.
Hi Mr. Michael, quick question; do you need to "finish" the other ends of the wires in any way? Thanks for all of the great videos! :-)
Thank you Sir. Good video. I do have a question, from the final closeup of the finished radials. I could not read what gauge wire you used. What gauge are the wires? Thanks again. 73 W8VHS
I used 14ga stranded. I have a large quantity of that wire, but you can use anything that you have available.
@@KB9VBRAntennas Thank you Sir
The gauge would be helpful. I cannot find that information in the transcript either. Does it actually matter? Thank you for doing such a great job for us.
Good idea with the alligator clips. I did pretty much the same thing, except with PowerPole connector stubs and ring terminals on each tripod leg. I may do some experimenting with scrap computer ribbon cable to see if more ground contact makes any difference -- K7SFA
Hi could you spiral the wire to do the same thing
no.
it will disrupt radiation pattern and cancel each other creating high swr.
Hi Michael
Thanks for the video. What size and type of wire are you using
That wire is 14ga stranded. I have a big spool of it, so a lot of antenna projects come out of that wire. You can use any gauge wire and get the same results.
Great video on the ground clamp. What is a good ground radial wire to use at a less costly price to most wire. Does size of ground wire matter ?
Thanks Michael
Marc
Kf4imv
The size of the wire really doesn't matter. I used 14ga stranded as it is readily available. But there are cheaper and thinner wires that will work just as well.
Nice tune! Who does that soundtrack at the end of the video?
I get my music from Soundstripe, a royalty free library that I subscribe to. The artist is Famous Cats and the song is Nectar. app.soundstripe.com/artists/340. It appears they are on Pandora in you are interested.
@@KB9VBRAntennas Very good.I’ll look for it.Thank you,and thank you for the great library of videos you’ve produced.I’ve been doing radio for 45 years now,but to those up and coming in the hobby,you are providing vital,honest information to help in the learning process,and there’s so much to be learned.
Being a ham for 23 years, I’m still learning too. I just like to share my enthusiasm with others.
@@KB9VBRAntennas Great..I’m hoping one day to see you work a little CW into your videos,too.Nonetheless,I’m still getting some good tips from watching your videos,especially when out in the field camping,and while comparing various antennas.Thanks again…all the best and 73
Is there some type of formula for radial / counter poise length calculation? If so does how much power you're pushing come into play. I'm trying to operate strictly QRP 5w-10w
@KB9VBR Can you plse put a kit for making 144-146 MHZ yagi uda Tape mesure antenna on your website
Michael, did you crimp then solder to the clip? I see the screw but I didn’t see you use it. Sorry My eyes are bad!
I crimped and soldered. I didn't use the screw at all.
The wolf river gentlemen use 3 33 feet long radials
Just wondering what formula they used to calculate the radial and came up with 33 feet value .
33 feet is roughly 1/4 wave on 40 meters (accounting for velocity factor of the wire). It would also be close to 1/8 wave on 80m and 1/2 wave on 20m. Radials on the ground don't need to be a specific length, but they should cover a large area for better ground coupling. It's my understanding that Wolf River provides three longer radials as that's what always worked well for them in their testing, and it does work. I've used that method for years.
But I've also found that I'm often shortening my three radials to get a better match on the higher bands, so in experimenting with more, shorter, radials it takes less time to get a good match and performance is as good, if not better, than the longer ones on the higher bands.
Which do you find better???
The 16 ft radials or the the screen carpet effect
Paul K1YOU
Right now, I think the single 36x84 inch window screen works just as well as 8 16 foot ground radials. I'm still testing and making comparisons, but I do not believe you are losing any efficiency or performance by going the window screen route. As for setup and tear-down: the window screen wins hands down.
@KB9VBR Antennas Thanks just got a roll of screen...difficult to get bright aluminum in SW Florida...thanks again will let you know how all works out..
Paul K1YOU
The coated aluminum will also work. You may need to scratch off a bit of the coating to make good contact, though.
Someone has to convince Menards to start selling 50-ohm coax or 450-ohm ladder line.
Then we'd all Save Big Money!
What size wire are you using for your radials? 73s W4IOS
I used 14 ga THHN wire, because I had a big spool. I recommend any wire size between 14 and 22 gauge. Anything thinner or thicker than that is too hard to work with.
I hope I didn’t screw up, instead of making gator clips with 4 X 16’ long wire, I made gator clips with 2 X16’ and 4 X8’ per clip. I made three sets.
You know the measure twice, cut once? Wellllll…. I screwed that up lol
Should I be ok?
You'll be ok. When laying radials on the ground, the length of the radial really doesn't matter as much as the amount of area that you can cover. Many 8 foot radials will have a similar effect as some 16 foot radials. You may also find that the combination of long and short radials may have an increased performance benefit on the higher bands.
@@KB9VBRAntennas good to know
Have you ever thought of doing the same with the Chameleon mpas 2.0?
That's a great idea. I bet adding more radials will increase the performance of that antenna. I'll have to give it a test.
what radial wire u use or they all the same
What are your SWR numbers vs using say 4 or 3 33’ radials? The SWR should be higher with the more/shorter combo. However your gain benefit should far outweigh any power losses from increased swr. Just curious what numbers you’ve gotten on both configs. Thanks!
You are correct that the SWR will be slightly higher when using more/shorter radials than fewer/longer ones. But in using the longer radials, adjusting the antenna was always more challenging on the higher bands than the lower ones. With 3-33' wires, I may spend up to 20 minutes to find the right spot and many times the SWR may not get below 1.7:1. I've found that using more/shorter radials has expedited the process in that I can do band changes in a couple of minutes. What has changed is that I'm no longer trying to adjust the radials to get a good match, I just concentrate on whip length and/or coil setting.
With the shorter radial network I can get the coil pretty close to 1:1 on 40m and between 1.2-1.5:1 on 20 meters. With 17m and above, I can't get it below 1.5:1. Checking on the analyzer, I noticed that the resistance drops to about 36 Ohms (which is typical for an HF vertical antenna that doesn't rely on a transformer of some sort). But SWR isn't a true indicator of antenna performance and the improved ground network makes up for any losses.
@@KB9VBRAntennas Thanks Michael! I myself have found that while using a 9.3' whip, 4 33' radials allow me to match to a 1.08 on 20 and a 1.2 on 40. Jump up to 16 radials and I end up with a 1.5 on 20 and a 1.8 on 40. According to research done by Rudy Severns, 16 radials will improve the signal by about 3 dB over 4 radials. I think it's well worth the loss due to SWR.
I have been wanting to do exactly this. Especially after this past Field Day. I set up my Wolf River Coils TIA for 40 meters. We had to move it a couple of times to keep the long radials out of other folks way who were in the park where we were setup.
Plus the added benefit of the extra radials.
de W5KAL
What size wire?
Generally speaking, the normal radials for WRC is 33'. But this configuration is two bundles each with (4) 16' radials which is 128' total. Is this overkill? Just curious.
8 radials may slightly be overkill. I've had many WRC users tell me they split their 3 33' radials into 6 16' radials and received equivalent performance. The overall length of the radial network is the same, but with more shorter radials, you increase the network performance. Here's an article from March 2010 issue of QST that is making the rounds. It verifies some of the things I've experienced: rudys.typepad.com/files/qst-march-2010-ground-systems.pdf
@@KB9VBRAntennas Thanks for the quick response. I'm somewhat new to portable antennas which I decided to experiment with and needed some input as to radial configurations.
What gauge wire did you use?
Does the size (AWG) of the ground radials matter?
It doesn't really matter. I use 14ga stranded for a lot of my projects because it is readily available at home improvement stores, but any thickness is fine.
I like Mueller clips.
what wire are you using?
In this demonstration it's 14ga stranded THHN wire.
@KB9VBRAntennas I almost purchased a roll from Lowes yesterday but found it very stiff with significant coil memory. Have you found that it relaxes after warming in the sun?
What kind and gauge wire did you use ?
I used 14ga THHN stranded because I have a big roll of it. You can use just about any size wire available to you.
How were your results on 40 and 80 meter?
I haven't used this setup on 80 meters, but it works extremely well on 40. I haven't noticed a difference in distance or signal quality on that band using the shorter radials as compared to three long ones.
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Great video… the music reminds me of 1970’s porn…
Begging for money = bye bye unsubscribed.
Ugh. Really? So once a year I say how you can support the channel and you go ballistic? Bye bye.
This is actually one of the FEW amateur radio youtube channels from which I have NOT unsubscribed. Why is it wrong for a content creator to ask to be paid?? A great deal of time, skill, and equipment is required to produce a video of this quality...I don't have a problem with anyone asking for money when they produce something....it's better than some of the other youtube "experts" who accept money and gifts from manufacturers and distributors, and then pretend like they are just an enthusiastic customer when they promote those products.
Thanks for the park activation today….I’ve got you in the log👍KJ7LAN
Thank you for your support, it's greatly appreciated. I'm also glad we made the contact. It's a pleasure to have you in the log.
Happy 4th of July to everyone 6 73 de YFUG 💯👍🙋♂️🍻
73! w3rrm
Thanks!
Thank you for your support, it's greatly appreciated.
Thanks!
Thank you for your support. I really appreciate it.