Ok since you are being persistent, this is how I see the antenna
getting into the mix. The guy mentioned grounding the SSB antenna and
since it doesn't seem that he is even close to being mentally
challenged, I would have taken his statement to mean he was concerned
about tying the SSB antenna ground system into the other ground
systems on the boat.
But it seems you wanted to make a big deal of his not being exactly
precise in his question. Now you come up with all sorts of off the
wall explanations of how antennas work and blame others for being
inept.

1st if you are interested, a grounded back stay can be made to work as
an efficient antenna just as well as any other type of grounded or
ungrounded antenna can. It all depends on how it is fed. But I don't
believe that was the question posed.

2nd, you can feel a little relieved as many people make the same
mistakes as you are making about how antennas radiate.
All antennas radiate all of their energy into the same "hemisphere" as
you call it. Where many make the mistake with vertical antennas is
looking at the radiation patterns drawn in many books and also some of
the old explanations of the ground as being "a mirror image" of the
vertical antenna and being the other half of it.
That is far from the truth. It was an elementary explanation of the
vertical compared to a dipoles operation but it is not how things
work.

All of the radiated power from a vertical comes from the vertical
element itself. The ground does not radiate as part of the antenna.

A dipole radiates the same amount of power as does a vertical antenna
that has the same efficiency. The radiation patterns are different
between the two types of antennas but there is no difference in total
energy radiated. A ground mounted vertical may have more ground losses
if there is an inefficient ground system for the antenna but then a
dipole also suffers from ground losses depending on how close to
ground it is mounted and its radiation pattern is also altered.

A counterpoise can be many configurations. 1/2 of a dipole antenna is
the counterpoise for the other half. Ground can be the counterpoise
for a vertical antenna. An elevated wire or set of wires can be a
counterpoise for a vertical antenna.

Regards
Gary




On 17 Dec 2005 12:32:22 -0800, "markvictor"
wrote:

I repeat "Read it again, Gary." the example I gave is an
illustration......read what it says and apply your thought process
instead of your reactionary ....If you did read the thread you would
know where the question developed...or perhaps you can find someone to
read it to you so you don't miss anything,since you admit in your post
that in fact you have not read it all.
And FYI, the illustration I used is derived from Ralph Holland's
Amateur Radfg 1996 ....