[BC] AM Grounding Question

[Richard Fry]

>I'm looking at a 5 KW AM in an area with very poor ground conductivity, 
>I'm told it is a "4".  Would increasing the number of radials (or making 
>them longer) help with coverage?  Are there any other tricks to improve the 
>ground situation?

That is about the conductivity that Brown, Lewis & Epstein had to work with 
in their 1937 benchmark study on ground systems.

They found that a system with 113 x 0.412-wavelength buried radials produced 
a measured groundwave field 3/10 of a mile from a vertical monopole of 55° 
or taller that was within several percent of the theoretical maximum for the 
applied power radiated by a perfect monopole over a perfect ground plane.

Once the groundwave travels beyond about 1/2-wavelength radius from the 
monopole, there isn't much one can do about the propagation loss it will 
have.

RF