Actually, as a ham I tend to work many bands. Probably more thatn a typical
marine SSB operator might. So, a single band antenna on a boat is probably
too limiting in many cases.

Doug, k3qt
s/v CAllista

"Gordon Wedman" wrote in message
news:dNxFd.99492$KO5.42998@clgrps13...
Hi Chuck
I kind of suspected that it would only work well over a limited frequency
range and that the typical antenna tuners would not help. Thanks to Doug
and yourself for confirming this. I'm not planning on installing one as I
have a conventional backstay arrangement but I was just wondering if
anyone actually used this kind of setup as I'd not seen it discussed.
I guess if you are a Ham and tend to work only one band this might be a
good arrangement for your boat.

"chuck" wrote in message
...
Hello Gordon,

The 20th edition of the ARRL Antenna Handbook has some information on a
40 meter, masthead half-sloper as you described. You might find that
interesting.

As Doug mentioned, this is basically a single-band antenna, except that
it would probably work ok on odd harmonic frequencies. And it would very
definitely radiate on other frequencies in an emergency, provided you
used an appropriate tuner.

Good luck!

Chuck












Gordon Wedman wrote:
Over the holidays I killed some time looking through a few back issues
of Cruising World. In the April 1986 issue a boat-based ham operator
said he used a top-fed backstay antenna with excellent results AND he
had no in-hull ground plane. He said he connected the shield from his
feed wire to the mast-side of the backstay and this allowed the mast and
all the standing rigging to act as a ground plane. He didn't say
anything about using stand-offs between the feed wire and the mast. I
would think you would get a lot of signal loss over that much length if
you didn't use stand-offs?
If a person could put up with the appearance and make sure the whole
set-up didn't get torn down by sails/running rigging, would this really
give good performance? I don't recall reading about this type of set-up
so I guess its not too common on recreational boats but maybe it could
be worth considering in some situations?