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Grounding for HF SSB, tiny surface area works OK?
In article ,
(BOEING377) wrote:
Didn't Gordon West recently publish the results of an informal experiment
where
his only ground was simply a short wire hung off the boat touching salt
water,
(not a long length dragged behind the boat)? As I recall, against all common
wisdom, it worked great. The article called into question the need for big
surface areas of grounding material if in salt water. It implied that simply
grounding to a metallic through hull might do the job. I know we still have
the
issues of coupler and antenna location, feedline, etc.
The above Idea of trailing a wire or a direct metalic connection
to the water, has been around since the original radios went on
floating objects. Mostly they aren't used for two reasons. One,
trailing anything behind a powerboat, will in all liklyhood enup in the
wheel and cause BAD THINGS to happen. Oh, you say, "We ALWAYS reel
it in before we, turn, stop, manuver, ect". Yeah Right, and how many
pilots need to replace the trailing wire antenna because they forgot to
reel it in before landing??? Second, any electrical connections to
Sal****er will in all likelyhood cause ELECTROSIS and can serverly damage
expensive equipment on your vessel. Most vessel owners and operators
like to keep ALL their electrical connection DC Isolated from the water
for this reason and building a good RF Ground System that is DC Isolated
isn't all that hard, If you do it when the hull is being built in the
first place.
Bruce in alaska
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add a 2 before @
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