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Re: Substrate heating
In a message dated 1/5/2001 00:51:43 Pacific Standard Time,
Aquatic-Plants-Owner at actwin_com writes:
> >My supporting observations come from HAM radio operators
> >that conclude plants grow better around a working radio
> >antenna. In marginal climates for ivy, when the antenna is
> >used, ivy grows up the antenna. If you don't use the antenna
> >for a year, the ivy dies. When you use the antenna again,
> >the ivy comes back.
That's an interesting observation. I've been a Ham Radio Operator since
1955, and have had a lot of towers and antennas in the ensuing years. One of
the fears you always have when you're operating a big tower is lightning
strikes. The lower the resistance of the soil with the ground system, the
more elaborate the ground system, the less the risk of a disastrous lightning
bolt being attracted to your antenna. (You learn these things after the
first time you take a lightning strike and it scares the mulm out of you.)
Therefore, I have usually made sure the soil around the tower is kept moist
at all times, particularly during a dry spell. In fact, there's an
indentation in the ground under my current antenna tower where I occasionally
allow the garden hose to trickle and saturate the soil. Naturally, plants
around my antennas do tend to grow nicely, but I think it's because they get
special attention to watering. I wonder if that might not explain the
phenomena rather than an RF field during periods of transmitting?