I don't know that I buy your statement that ground losses aren't
extremely important for receiving applications. Antenna systems are
bi-directional. If you lose xdB of transmitted sigal due to ground
losses, then you are also going to lose xdB of received signal due to
ground losses.

A more important issue is that ground losses are very important when
receiving a lightning strike. It may be effective to bury several
runs of bare #6 copper in trenches radiating from your "ground
point". The QTH here is located on a solid rock slab. All grounding
is through buried #6 wires and a few ground rods driven laterally
between the rock layers up by the tower base.

Regards,
Ed

On 11 Apr 2006 12:46:24 -0700, "
wrote:

Hi Bob,

Ground losses aren't extremely important for receiving applications. A
few extra feet of depth of ground rod isn't going to make any
difference, because the RF doesn't flow 8 feet down, or 5 feet down,
but more flows on the surface of the ground and/or some inches down
(depending on your ground conductivity profile)

As such, you could try a 4 or 5 foot ground rod.

If you want a no-pounding solution instead, lay down a few radial
wires. The length and number aren't critical. Try four or eight wires
each 1/8 wavelength long at the lowest frequency of interest.

If the noise in your receiver doesn't increase when you plug the
antenna into the RX , then you may want a better ground system. If the
noise DOES increase, then your noise floor is that of the
natural/artificial noise that your antenna is picking up, and more raw
signal from the antenna won't help anything. (Though moving the
antenna around might).

73,
Dan
N3OX
www.n3ox.net