HF Radio earthing advice please

My Codan was earthed with a length of round braided wire similar to 8 Gauge electrical wire. Was more flexible and had transparent brown plastic sheathing on it.

It came with the radio

According to one techie on the Codan Outback Radio forum, "The reason it is a flat braid rather than a round one is that RF travels better over the surface area as the RF flows on the “skin” of the braid." Another technical guy reckoned round or flat didn't make much difference. There seems general consensus though that the better earthing you have will improve the radio's performance, something I need to do on mine.

Hi Ti

my Codan 3040 has a round earth and was factory fitted. Never noticed any performance difference.

My 9350 had flat cable and when they serviced it, it came back with a round one. Again no noticeable performance issues

Cheers

Anthony

Thanyou for the above replies, I am in the illawarra nsw and can send and receive to charters towers ,alice springs,south aust ,vic,and the telephone interconnect through Reids Radio Data works well.

Would you consider this to be normal performance for a barrett 950 ???

As most of you know, radio frequency signals travel predominantly near the surface or 'skin' of a conductor. That is, on the surface of individual strands, not on the outside of a bunch of conductors. So it is of no significance whether that collection of strands is in the form of a flat, round, or any other form of cable.
What matters is that there are many strands rather than a few.

The reason that earth straps were often manufactured in a flat form is that the strands can easily be woven into a flat braid and do not require any overlaying insulation to maintain the form of the cable thus saving the cost in manufacture. Once, all battery earth straps were of this flat un-insulated form for cost saving but in more recent times auto makers have changed to a circular form PVC cable with fewer strands as it better suits their costs.

So no, it matters little whether your RF earth strap is circular or flat.