Hartmut and Laurie,

Thank-you for the reports.  The 'no traces' of 7 July is interesting.
The transmitter was running with 0.9 amps aerial current.
A 150m length of 10 conductor control cable running
approximately under the aerial was used for an earth on the 7th.
When the other earth leads
(2 metre copper ground rod and a pair concrete encased wires)
were reconnected last night, the field strength improved by
about 5-6 dB and Hartmut copied a "VO1" at least.  Athough
the tuning had to be adjusted, the aerial current was still
only 0.9 amps and not 1.8 amps as we might expect for a 5-6
dB improvement in signal.

73
Joe