I think there are a couple of reasons I want to try this method.
First is that it's a technically cool use of a VNA - which is my
personal favorite gadget in general.
I live in an area surrounded by farm lands and assume that the soil here
is nice and conductive. But I have no idea what that really means.
Maybe the area around here is not that conductive. Making a set of
measurements would be a way to quantify that assumption. I do realize
that this is a data point specific to the place you took the
measurement. So taking the similar measurement around the area would
give some idea of how much variation there may be.
73/jeff/ac0c
alpha-charlie-zero-charlie
www.ac0c.com
On 3/2/2024 11:51 AM, Richard (Rick) Karlquist wrote:
On 3/1/2024 10:44 AM, Brian Beezley wrote:
Rudy Severns, N6LF, has updated his writeup on ground parameter
measurement with several new probe designs. A ground probe and NanoVNA
I'm not trying to take away anything from Rudy's excellent work, but
he doesn't explain in the posted article what useful advantage we can
derive from the measurements. It only gives a spot measurement of the
top foot of soil. And the soil that matters is the soil at large
distances from the antenna. It is unlikely that this probe could be
used to survey all that area of land that isn't owned by the ham with
the antenna.
Also, I would prefer Rudy's previous method using a low 1/2 wave dipole.
It covers more area and presumably would penetrate into the soil more
than a foot.
Another thing I would prefer is to simply put up a vertical and a dipole
and A/B them for signal strength on various RBN stations.
Finally, it is also possible to build a Beverage antenna and run
a current probe along it as I have done and determined how fast
it attenuates with distance.
I know very well that my QTH is over highly conductive ground without
ever using an OWL probe.
73
Rick N6RK
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