In article ,
Gary Schafer wrote:


Hi Bruce,

The diameter of the antenna wire is not too important. Actually the
larger it is the less resistive loss it has and less power will be
wasted in heat. But unless the antenna is significantly shorter than a
quarter wavelength that loss is negligible in the antenna as the
radiation resistance (radiation resistance is where the power goes to
be radiated) is usually much higher than the resistive loss of the
wire.

However in a very short antenna the radiation resistance can be only
an ohm or a few ohms. Then the resistance of the wire would be a
larger percentage and the heat loss would be greater thus warranting a
larger diameter wire.

Otherwise a larger diameter wire has the advantage of greater
bandwidth for given tuner settings. But the difference between #10 and
# 16 would probably not be noticeable.

As you well know, in the case of the ground system as we have said
many times before, it needs to be as short as possible or it becomes
part of the antenna and radiates. "The antenna starts at ground".
Anything above ground is antenna.

Regards
Gary

Yep, absolutly right Gary.


Bruce in alaska
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