I will second the need for short radials if your soil is very poor. I installed my K9AY system last fall after it sat new and unused in my shed for a few years.
The first I noticed that it had very poor rejection of distant signals of the back of the loops. I added the suggested radials, and noticed a small improvement. The loops really started to work when I added a cheap CATV ground rod at the end of each radial where the loop outer tie down pegs are located. I tried adding four more radials, for a total of eight, but if there was a difference after adding the additional four ground rods it was not noticeable. _________________ Searchable Archives: http://www.contesting.com/_topband - Topband Reflector
