BoatBanter.com - View Single Post - Erosion of the Zinc anode and HF transmission via PacTOR modem andSailmail

Larry

Bil wrote in news:4593e5ee-8dc2-463a-bd1d-
:

After checking my zinc anode, I'm fairly certain I'm getting
accelerated erosion of my shaft zinc anode when transmitting Sailmail
e-mail via my HF radio and PacTOR modem.

Sailmail and the PacTOR modem drive the HF radio (an ICOM IC-M710)
fairly hard.

Does everyone transmitting with a PacTOR modem suffer accelerated
erosion of their zinc anodes? Or is this something specific to my
installation (and can be corrected)? If the latter, what should I look
for and correct?

Cheers

Bil

You must send an awful lot of email.....

You may want to disconnect the tuner ground from the underwater propulsion
and zincs and go to a ground screen system inside the hull. Start right
under the tuner and just lay out a roll of chicken wire screen along the
hull as big as you can. This forms a series capacitor with the seawater
outside the plastic the other plate. If your screen has a large enough
area against the hull, (The bigger the better), the RF to ground flows
through this series capacitor's "hull dielectric" into the sea....without
direct contact with the zinc protected underwater metals. With no
RF current flowing through the zincs....the RF problem bypasses it right
through the hull.