There’s a CG3000 remote antenna tuner in the “not currently in use” area of my garage. That isn’t necessarily a final verdict. In amateur radio, the distance between “retired equipment” and “next weekend’s experiment” can be remarkably short.
Before it reached the shelf, it taught me something useful about the less glamorous half of a vertical antenna.
The starting point
The arrangement was straightforward: about 11 metres of wire supported by a 12-metre pole, fed through the CG3000 at the base. Initially, I connected it to a two-metre copper earth rod.
A remote tuner feeding a vertical wire seemed a promising way to cover several HF bands without continually changing antennas. But the performance wasn’t what I expected.
I already had other wire antennas to compare it with, including a vertical half-wave for 20 metres. The CG3000 arrangement had some convincing to do.
The earth rod wasn’t the whole answer
My initial installation put too much faith in that copper rod.
An earth connection and an effective RF return system aren’t automatically the same thing. With a base-fed vertical, the return path is part of the antenna system. A tuner can find an acceptable impedance match while losses elsewhere still absorb power that I would rather radiate.
In other words, getting the transmitter comfortable with the load doesn’t tell me how well the complete antenna is working.
The obvious next experiment was to add radials.
Out came more wire
Adding radials made a noticeable difference.
The antenna began producing more encouraging results, including DX contacts on 12 and 15 metres and a contact into India—a direction I often find difficult.
That was enough encouragement to add more. Lots more.
There was some further improvement, although the garden imposed a compromise: the radials were spread over roughly a semicircle because of the fence. I couldn’t lay out a beautifully symmetrical system in every direction.
That is the version of antenna building most of us actually practise. The drawing has unlimited space. The garden has boundaries.
What those contacts do—and don’t—prove
I was pleased with the improvement, but this wasn’t a controlled laboratory comparison.
HF propagation changes. Stations come and go, activity moves between bands, and a successful contact depends on the equipment and conditions at both ends. Working India after adding radials doesn’t give me a measured figure for the improvement.
What I can say is that the radial installation coincided with noticeably better on-air results and made the arrangement much more promising.
A more rigorous follow-up would involve repeated comparisons, signal reports and careful notes, rather than judging everything by the most exciting contact of the afternoon.
The choke complication
The choke experiments weren’t straightforward either.
At one stage, adding a choke to the coax made the performance worse. That was particularly puzzling because it was a choke I had tested and used successfully elsewhere.
I wouldn’t turn that experience into a general claim that the CG3000 “doesn’t like chokes”. Changing the common-mode path can change the behaviour of the whole installation, especially where the feed line may be participating in the RF return system.
That is a possible explanation, not something I established by measurement in this experiment. The result was a reminder to look at the complete arrangement: radiator, radials, tuner, coax and choke placement.
What I took away
The biggest lesson was to give the RF return system as much attention as the wire going up the pole.
The earth rod alone hadn’t delivered the performance I wanted. Radials helped substantially in practical use, and an imperfect layout was still worth trying. Adding more brought some further improvement, without magically removing every compromise.
I also came away with renewed respect for the difference between a good impedance match and a good antenna system. A low SWR is useful information. It isn’t a complete performance report.
Back on the shelf—for now
For the moment, the CG3000 is out of service. That doesn’t erase the useful results, and it doesn’t settle what it might do in another installation.
If I return to it, I’d start with the radial system, document the arrangement properly and make more systematic comparisons with my other antennas. I’d also change one thing at a time—a sensible ambition that becomes harder to follow when there’s a fresh reel of wire within reach.
That’s much of the appeal of this hobby for me. Build something, try it, question the result, and go back outside.
Sometimes the most useful improvement is the wire lying on the ground.
73,
Kev — M7XOM