Soil Data

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

The USDA has an online database that will allow you to get some info on the soil in your area. You may be able to get soil types and depths electrical conductivity or depth to water table. Any or all of these are good to know when evaluating the antenna situation. Go to the link below.

http://websoilsurvey.nrcs.usda.gov/app/WebSoilSurvey.aspx


Put in your address or lat/lon. Or you can do State and County.

Zoom and recenter as needed to find your location

Use the AOI button (area of interest) to box or rectangle an area around your location. Don't make it too small, especially if you want data for HF (you want many wavelengths from your antennas).

Then click on the Soil Data Explorer Tab.

Then click on the Soil Properties and Qualities subtab.

Then select Soil Chemical Properties from the menu on the left.

Select Electrical Properties

Select the Depth Range radio button. Enter 1 for the Top Depth and 360 for the Bottom Depth (this should give you enough depth, even for 160 meters).

Press the View Rating button

You can do similar runs for other properties.

[w3jn]

  All I can get is 0.0 no matter the zoom or soil type

Summary by Map Unit — Carroll County, Maryland 

Map unit symbol  Map unit name  Rating (millimhos per centimeter)  Acres in AOI  Percent of AOI  GcB2 Glenelg channery loam, 3 to 8 percent slopes, moderately eroded  0.0  1.1  100.0%

Totals for Area of Interest  1.1  100.0% 

[flintstone mop]

YUP,
I'm batting 0.0 here also ............hmmmmmmmmm

Fred

[N3AMX]

same here....
0.0

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

No wonder you guys are pissweak! Your soil has zero conductivity.

[W5EFR]

 Summary by Map Unit — Harris County, Texas
Rating (millimhos per centimeter)    Acres in AOI    Percent of AOI
Ad    Addicks loam    1.0    1.9    90.4%
Ge    Gessner loam    1.0    0.2    9.6%
Totals for Area of Interest    2.1    100.0%


 

[WA1GFZ]

all I have in my yard is dirt

[w3jn]

Mr. Blu - MR. BLUTARSKY... ZERO POINT ZERO.

.

[W1VD]

Steve

Coming up 0.0 here as well - not sure why that is. The generally accepted rating for this area is somewhere in the 1 - 2 mS/m. A couple years back I made a number of field strength measurements at 137 kHz and the 1 - 2 mS/m gave reasonable results.

Map attached. Makes me want to move...     

[ab3al]

steve

my dirt is better than your dirt... na na na na booo booo

[Jim KF2SY]

0.0 for me too!
According to my property tax bill, I should be demanding
salt water conductivity!  Gotta go find my pitchfork...

[W3RSW]

Neat site Steve.
I'll save this one.
I also got "zero" conductivity but did get a very informative two page PDF describing GuE3 soil, Gilpin-Upshur complex, 25 to 35 % slopes, well drained,  severly eroded. Surface silt loam, bedrock at two to three feet.

Yes, I'm on a hill, but more like 15% slope.


The US map contours almost seem counterintuitive.
Iowa at 30,  so. Fla which just came from the sea and is mostly sand at 8. 

Then you realize that very porous sandy soil gets washed over very well by tropical rains constantly if it's only a few feet above sea-level if it has any drainage at all.  Since pure water (rain water) has little conductivity, Voila!

I guess you have to be in salt water flats or tidal basins to get the really good conductivity, - beneath the resolution of the US map.  Did anyone drill down to get to the marshy or saltwater areas?

[KM1H]

According to the map Im on the 1 - 2 border but since Im on a hilltop and solid ledge is about a foot down its probably a real zero.

Its also a reason that elevated radials do a good job on 80/160.

Carl
KM1H

[k4kyv]

Map attached. Makes me want to move...   

I tried to save that map to disc, but the saved file wouldn't open.  Any suggestions?

(update) It saved as a .php file.  I tried manually renaming it to a .jpg file (erased the php and typed in jpg), and it opened.

Interestingly, with a couple of exceptions, the places in the country where the conductivity is the highest (30), the climate sucks.  Conversely, many of the localities where the climate is most pleasant, the conductivity is at 1 or 2.  Looks like it is hard to find anywhere that you can have the best of it both ways.

[KA2PYQ]

It`s fun to actually have the kind of soil conductivity that would
look good in an answer. The Jodry Demarest, NJ QTH is a mountain
top QTH with nearly black soil where I buried an RCA CTC- 38X TV
chassis lashed to an RCA CTC- 19X TV chassis next to a tree. In
addition to them being carcasses of a couple of RCA`s best color
TVs my ground connection was like shiny metal immersed in a yard
"like a pool of mercury". No need to make a George A Bonadio
ground shunting wire or pair. All losses were associated with what
was above ground, sometimes barely. (Hi!) Our QTH was beaten
slightly in description by a farm in Closter, NJ that had seen it`s
dark soil covered by more incidental manure and wood ashes than
ours. It`s owner stripped and sold the animals and herbiculture,
then the wooden buildings and tools, then dug the topsoil 2- feet
deep and sold that, then sold the property for the usual peanuts
but the soil sale had pushed the gains to $2 million 1945 wartime.
Demarest prohibits the export of it`s soil but professional landscap
ers discard topsoil, loam, and trees by the truckful out of stupidity.

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

According the FCC map (much less resolution) your are in the 2-4 microMhos range.

  All I can get is 0.0 no matter the zoom or soil type

Summary by Map Unit — Carroll County, Maryland 

Map unit symbol  Map unit name  Rating (millimhos per centimeter)  Acres in AOI  Percent of AOI  GcB2 Glenelg channery loam, 3 to 8 percent slopes, moderately eroded  0.0  1.1  100.0%

Totals for Area of Interest  1.1  100.0% 

[KA2PYQ]

Thanks, Ace. 2- 4 microMhos per zixugzdoyg. If the family needs to
increase the soil conductivity we could bury the George Washington
bridge in the back yard or maybe go mobile and drill a hole in it and
hang a 1/2 or 5/8 wave through, or maybe divert sewage treatment
through the entire yard instead of just around the septic tank. Not
many more ways to improve things here. It looks like maybe the red
clay downtown or maybe the black pumice underground in Alpine, NJ
might have lowered things a notch in the area but it sure is fun
having the best soil conductivity around, even beating the amazingly
good soil conductivity in Secaucus around their transmitters. For the
rest of you who have yellow New Hampshire pebbles making a yard
full of poured antenna insulators or sand "good for carrots", I`d
suggest putting your house on stilts then inviting an instant coffee
co. in Elizabeth or Carteret to donate a trainload before you toss
chopped Oak (chopped oak wood, oak leaves, oak anything) and
lime or wood ashes mixed on top. There`s also the "free public out
house" under your antenna`s shadow approach.

[W1EUJ]

What?

[KM1H]

What?

Having been raised in Brooklyn there was a popular saying that went:  "If everyone in NYC flushed their toilets at once NJ would be flushed off the map"

Meanwhile I'll stick to my rocktop, it may become an island when the asteroid hits or the global warming loonies have their way. Ive been running the 351W Ford V-8 wood chipper fairly regularly the past 2 months as the land clearing project continues for the new 160 and 80M arrays. Mostly oak; maybe the soil conductivity will rise to .01 in 20 years or so.

When I was floating around on a Navy vacation and tuning the RBB, the most reliable AM stations in the North and South Atlantic and the Med were WBZ and WKBW. WOR in Secaucus was often down in the mud but they never had decent programming anyway in the 60's.

Carl
KM1H