Let’s get real here! If we lay a wire antenna on the ground, surely It can’t radiate more power than that cool-looking, expensive quarter-wave whip you just spent a small fortune to buy? Well, yes it can – but with a few caveats.
We can use a trick of geometry to support our claim. Our magic wire antenna has a footprint on the ground of only one square foot. The cool, costly ground-mounted whip has a footprint on the ground of only one square inch (ignoring the radial field). Bigger is better yes? Not convinced?
Okay, let’s unravel the geometric trickery while still maintaining our original claim. You might picture one square foot as a small square with equal sides of one foot. Therein lies the trickery. If we take 144 feet of wire of 1/12 inch diameter and tightly wind it into a square with sides of one foot, we’ll have a footprint on the ground of one square foot. Now let’s unwind that wire and stretch it out in a straight line along the ground. It is now 144ft long and 1/12 inch wide which is still one square foot.
Enough of the mathemagical sleight of hand; there is a much more convincing way of proving our point. Everybody knows that an antenna wire laid directly on the ground is lossy and, for once, everybody is right. But, only a few of us know how to take advantage of such a wire and make it a very useful antenna. I have personally enjoyed multiple QSOs with wires on the ground – despite the losses. I too was a skeptic until I actually tried it.
The theory of why it works has been covered in previous posts on this blog. The secret is that the wire has to be at least one wavelength (and preferably multiple wavelengths) long. The radiation pattern is a directional beam with low elevation.
As we can see in the far field plots above, EZNEC predicts an elevation angle of 25 degrees and a beamwidth of 54 degrees. However, the antenna has a loss of 3.9dBi. If we allow for the fact that some signal is also radiated outside the main beam, let’s treat that loss as, say, 5dBi.
Now compare that to our quarter-wave vertical for which we can estimate unity gain with a beamwidth of 360 degrees.
Now a clearer picture is beginning to emerge. If we calculate the RF energy within a beamwidth of 54 degrees for both antennas we can see how they compare. Let’s say our transceiver puts out 100 watts (I can hear QRP diehards loading for bear here). The lossy wire on the ground will only radiate 30 watts. The quarter-wave vertical will radiate all 100 watts but spread over 360 degrees. Within the beamwidth of 54 degrees, the vertical will radiate only 15 watts!
Gadzooks! A reel of wire costs only a few bucks but can radiate twice as much power as a shiny whip costing significantly more? Date check: yes it’s still January, not the first of April. Admittedly, this is a theoretical analysis lacking rigorous procedures for a proper engineering investigation. But, once again, I have personally made QSOs with more than one wire-on-the-ground antenna. Were my signal reports very poor? Absolutely not. This is not a spoof post, trust me.
There is another advantage of this wire-on-the-ground antenna when compared to a quarter-wave whip. Vertical antennas are generally considered to be susceptible to vertically-polarized noise. A wire on the ground is relatively immune to noise because of its inherent signal loss.
I don’t recommend selling your shiny, expensive whip and replacing it with some wire strewn across your backyard. However, imagine the possibilities when operating out in the Big Blue Sky Shack. A long wire can be concealed in a ditch, or in tall grass. Store it on a fly-fishing reel, then when you have finished operating simply reel it back in. It is the ultimate stealth antenna which could also be useful in a HOA situation.
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Very interesting. How do you feed the wire? With the 1/49 Balun? Is the antenna pattern similar to a long wire antenna? TA1DX, 73!
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Thanks for the question Atila. When the wire is laid on the ground it is detuned and becomes a random wire. The length doesn’t matter as long as it is longer than a wavelength. I feed it with an L-match tuner. No impedance transformer is required because the L-match tuner easily finds a match. A long wire antenna erected above ground will perform differently depending on how it is erected, but will often have a similar pattern if it is terminated to ground through a resistor at one end. Without the resistor the long wire will be bidirectional.
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Dear John,
TNX,
I’ll try it as soon as I get the chance.
I wish you lots of DX’s,
73!
Atila, TA1DX
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@hamradiooutsidethebox.ca Interesting. I haven’t tried the “on-the-ground” antennas (yet) but recently tried a Terminated Endfed V (TEFV) 25.6m of wire with the middle up 7.1m, a 50:450ohm transformer at one end and 30W 500 ohm non-inductive resistor at the other. The ends are ~21m apart.
Worked quite well although down 12dB over a dipole on 40m. Like your insight: the main lobe gain could mostly compensate for the overall loss for your longer but lower antenna.
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Thanks for the comment Giovanni. I have wanted to try a V-beam for a long time; maybe I should give it a try when all the snow has melted in the spring. I am surprised your V-beam was 12dB down compared to a dipole on 40m. Perhaps longer wires might help? The US Marine Corps Field Antenna Handbook, A155204 recommends antenna leg lengths of at least one wavelength and preferably several wavelengths. The angle between the legs of the antenna also affects the gain and elevation angle. 40m can be a tricky band because it usually gives best results over shorter distances, but at night can also be useful for DX. A dipole is less directional than a V-beam so it may respond better to some signals.
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After a modest engineering effort to test that this theoretical analysis is pointing in the right direction, I wonder how far off the ground you have to elevate the wire to loose enough of the loss and turn this into a real DX blowtorch? 😉
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An interesting question Matt. The simple answer is “one half wavelength” but that would be missing the point. A long wire laid on the ground relies on interaction with the ground to work. A signal’s reflection in the ground travels more slowly than the signal in the wire. The 2 signals interact with each other in such a way that at some point along the wire the antenna acts as though the ground isn’t there and radiates the signal at Brewster’s angle. A more detailed explanation is given at: https://hamradiooutsidethebox.ca/2021/09/13/a-most-unusual-antenna/.
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Very interesting… perhaps the easiest antenna to deploy. I’ll have to read up on this… is this what they call a beverage antenna?
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It is similar to a beverage except that a beverage is usually raised a few feet above ground and is terminated in a resistor at the far end. Beverages are usually used for receiving only, especially on 160m. A friend has a 160m contest station with 3 beverages, each 1200 feet long. His transmitting antenna is a full size quarter wave vertical tower about 130ft tall.
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My dad told me stories about moving wires out in the yard for his dad (the original WB0ISG) back in the 70s and I can only guess this is what they were up to. Thanks for the response and for the info on the 160m big gun station. Impressive to say the least!
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Interesting. What is used for a counterpoise?
-Tom Lange
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Tom, I used a single 17ft wire on the ground.
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