Marconi, I appreciate the openness you invite into this thread.
However, I started a thread on the forum about the counterpoise. A few interested folks participated. Even among we who did some expressed some variety of thought that reflected a limited interest in the subject to the point of trivializing the subject. Several I hoped would participate chose not to do so. I accepted that decision and moved on.
I do not think some who know things on some levels know much about the subject, or else dislike untangling the cords of time.
But, if it helps, what I was saying is simple.
Radials do more than decouple the mast and feedline.
Doc calls this other function - "the other half", yet, IMO, that falls short of a full explanation of what the meaning of counterpoise is.
What I said to Booty is that at the height his antenna was mounted it was insufficiently supplied by the radial size he used. Why? At that height it would require a large enough set of radials to provide a capacitive integration WITH the earth to make the antenna as efficient as he may have hoped.
A Counterpoise is designed to integrate the antenna with the earth by forming a capacitor between itself and the earth. It looks like a GP, and has functionality similar to a GP, but is not a decoupling device in this case, but just the opposite.
There is a point as we raise an antenna in height above the ground that the radials can no longer act as a capacitor plate with the earth in the same way it has down low due to the distance above the earth. At this point in height the radials begin to predominate as a Groundplane acting now as the substitute for the earth, or artificial ground, as the other half, and as a decoupling device for the for the coax and mast.
It is my opinion that the size of the radials network has a bearing on the performance of the antenna at every height, when low, when it may in fact be acting to couple the antenna to the earth, and high, as an artificial substitute for the earth decoupling from natural earth taking its place. When it is small it is a less proficient device. In some of my reading a case has been made for the activity upon the radiating energy from the antenna by the groundplane that says its size will work more favorably when its distance out from the vertical increases. Granted, the size of the radials is smaller as our height increases, but that doesn't mean we can just shorten them to the point of nothing and expect an efficient system.
To me one of the most common uses of this confusion is in mobile installations. Rightly it is said that the automobile provides the other half. Wrongly it is said the automobile is the groundplane. The automobile provides the other half by forming the counterpoise that provides a capacitor with the earth beneath the automobile. To me, this is why antennas mounted on top of the most central point of the mobile's bulk are the most successful. Clearly the automobile body is heavily disproportionate in size to the simple 1/4 wave mobile antenna, so what is occurring is not merely a matter of the other half in a purely physical sense as we seem to see with a dipole where both halves are equally sized. It is the work of the counterpoise, the combined coupling of the antenna system - antenna and mobile, in point of this point of discussion - with the true groundplane, the earth. Frankly, in my opinion, the automobile is not the same thing in a mobile setup as the radials system on a raised 5/8 wave antenna at all. For that matter, neither is the buried radials system of a ground mounted antenna the same as a counterpoise that is not connected to the earth physically, but raised to heights conducive to forming a capacitor with the earth. Is this distinction really important to understand? Apparently not. After all, antenna myths thrive on ignorance, and ignorance sells antennas, and selling antennas is important.
There is some complexity to this that even what I have written will confuse some. I can not help that as I often look to discussion to unravel and retie the twisted knots of my thinking.
There are nuances to understanding some things that take a lot of reading and reading again, and then clearly explaining them is still not easy. I have no doubt some of what I have written will be challenged, questioned, and picked apart. That's good. On the other hand, I have some doubt of that, as this subject is not very popular.
