Why 120 Radials Still Lose to an Inverted-L EFHW in the Real World

Over the last few years I, ON6URE, have seen the same story play out at least five times. A serious contest operator spends days laying 120-plus radials under a ground-mounted vertical, convinced he has built the final answer for 160/80 or 80/40. Then, after living with it, he pulls it out and replaces it with an inverted-L EFHW.

That is not because the end-fed is magic. It is because a ground-mounted vertical still lives and dies by its ground system. In a practical amateur installation, that dependence on the soil often becomes the real limiting factor.

Installation results always depend on soil conductivity, available space, radial layout, nearby conductors, feed-system choking, and antenna geometry.

The Real Problem with Ground-Mounted Verticals

A ground-mounted monopole is only half the antenna. The other half is the return system: the radials, counterpoise, and the soil they sit on. If that return path is not good enough, a meaningful part of the power is dissipated in the ground instead of being radiated. That is why two verticals that look identical above ground can behave very differently once the radial field and soil are no longer ideal.

In theory, a properly executed vertical with a very good ground system can be excellent. In practice, many amateur installations never reach that ideal. They become wire-intensive, labor-intensive, and still remain strongly dependent on the local ground conditions.

Why the Inverted-L EFHW Often Wins Anyway

A resonant inverted-L EFHW changes the game. It is fed at a high-impedance, low-current point, so it does not rely on a big buried radial carpet in the same way a ground-mounted monopole does. In real installations that can be a major advantage. A short, controlled return path is often enough where a true monopole would want what feels like a small copper mine.

That is why operators so often replace the radial-heavy vertical with an inverted-L EFHW and feel they finally have a more practical and better-performing antenna for 160/80 or 80/40 work.

No, an EFHW Is Not Truly “Radial-Free”

That said, I would not call an EFHW radial-free. It still needs a return path. If that path is not intentionally managed, the feed line can become part of the antenna system. That is where common-mode current, instability, and pattern unpredictability enter the picture.

So the real advantage is not that the EFHW magically works without any return system. The real advantage is that the required return system is usually far smaller, easier to control, and less dependent on a massive radial field than a ground-mounted monopole.

What Rudy Severns, N6LF, Actually Showed

Rudy Severns, N6LF, put real measurement work behind what many operators eventually discover the hard way. His experiments showed that the first set of radials gives most of the improvement, and after that the gains become progressively smaller. That does not mean radials stop helping. It means the return on extra copper begins to flatten out.

That matters because many amateurs inherit the broadcast-world idea that 120 radials is the gold standard in every case. For broadcast engineering, that standard had a purpose. For typical amateur HF installations, however, the cost, labor, and wire count are often hard to justify once you look at the actual performance curve.

Severns also highlighted another important lesson: a vertical with a small number of properly elevated radials can perform remarkably well compared with a large on-ground radial field. The real issue is ground loss, not blind faith in one specific radial count.

The Nuance Most People Miss: Good Ground Can Expose a Weak Radial System More Clearly

This sounds backwards at first, but it is one of the most interesting insights in the whole discussion. Brown’s classic work, later revisited and explained by Severns, showed that as the ground conductivity improves, the current in a given radial system falls off more rapidly with distance. In other words, to fully capture the benefit of better ground, you may actually need more radials.

That means a finite radial system can be exposed more brutally on good ground. The weak spots become easier to see because the system is capable of more, but the radial field is still the bottleneck.

On poorer ground, that specific “not enough radials” effect can be less obvious. But poor ground is not helping you. It simply means the whole system is already paying more loss in the soil, so the shortage of radials may look less dramatic while the overall efficiency is still worse.

This Is the Part Where the Blanket Statements Fail

This is not a blanket claim that every inverted-L EFHW beats every vertical. A properly designed ground-mounted vertical with an excellent radial system can be superb. But that is the point: it needs an excellent radial system. Many real-world stations never get there.

By contrast, a resonant inverted-L EFHW often reaches a better real-world compromise with far less wire in the ground, less sensitivity to soil quality, and far less installation effort. That is why so many operators end up making the swap.

The Bottom Line

If you have the space, the patience, and the willingness to build a serious ground system, a ground-mounted vertical can absolutely deliver. But if you want strong low-band results without turning your garden into a radial farm, the inverted-L EFHW is often the more practical answer.

Not because it breaks the laws of physics. Not because it is “radial-free.” But because it asks less from the soil, and in amateur installations that often makes all the difference.

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