Wayne.B wrote in
:

On Thu, 03 Feb 2005 03:44:09 GMT, Larry W4CSC wrote:

That crappy PC board connector they expect you to leave out in the
weather on the AT-130 antenna tuner and the crappy CB coax pigtail
SO-239 connector CAN be eliminated at the tuner.....

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Mine will be installed in a reasonably dry location inside the
flybridge console so hopefully I'll be able to duck some of those
issues.



Keep in mind the antenna actually begins at the high voltage connector on
the tuner and the unshielded wire to the actual antenna is also part of the
transmit antenna. RF inside a console full of electronics has dire
consequences as it induces big RF signals into every power cable,
unshielded NMEA stupid cable and those idiotic open connections. It can
scramble almost all the plastic-cased electronics, destroying them if it
gets strong enough.

The tuner is quite sealed, after you get rid of the cheap connectors
hanging out of it. Ours is as clean as the day I installed it on top of
the aft cabin house directly aft of the mizzenmast. Its connecting wire to
the 55' long backstay antenna is about 8" long for this reason. It still
causes the stupid, unshielded propane detector in the galley to go crazy by
inducing RF into its control wires back to the electric gas valve in the
stern. It beeps like crazy when transmitting on HF.

Oh, please don't let anyone use coax with the shield grounded between the
tuner and the antenna (whip I'd guess). Don't let them "neatly" tywrap it
to anything metal, running it through a grounded stuffing tube to go
outside, either. All this shunt capacitance to ground makes tuning tough
on the tuner and bleeds off your transmitted signal to the rigging, instead
of out on the air. I see so many tywrapped to the grounded part of rigging
on its way up to some elevated insulator, "to protect the passengers". How
silly, the RF is very strong in that insulated wire going up there.

I've never seen anyone killed by 150W from these little transmitters.
1.5KW from a ham rig is another matter...(c;