I have to agree with Chucky on at least one point. The postings on
this thread are humorous. That must be frustrating to those who were
trying to follow the thread in the hope of learning something useful.

The reason I find it amusing is that both the con's and the pro's are
to some extent correct in their reasoning all be it flowed to one
extent or the other.

As I am really old and lacking any substantial short-term memory,
re-reading the entire thread to glean every single nuance of every
attempted point would be counter productive for me because I would
probably forget what I was doing. I will however make some assumption,
which I will hold true, for the sake of simplicity. By the way Chucky,
the proper use of reduction to the absurd (reductio ad absurdum) logic
would require a model theory which is based on the law of excluded
middle (tertium non datur) which clearly does not apply to the
statements put forth in this thread.

My assumptions:

1. The usual antenna system used with marine transmitters in
the intermediate and high-frequency bands is the Marconi or grounded
radiator, in contrast to the Hertz or ungrounded radiator. Technically
the most basic of antenna, it is an "isotropic radiator". This is a
mythical antenna, which radiates in all directions, as does the light
from a lamp bulb. This assumption is somewhat modified by assumption
#5 below, as a reflection (pardon the witticism) of reality.

2. Depending upon height above ground, the influence of
surrounding objects and other factors, our quarter wave antenna with a
near perfect ground exhibits a nominal input impedance of around 36
ohms.

3. Ground losses affect the feed point impedance and antenna
efficiency. When mounted on a real ground, the input impedance can
range from 38 ohms for a well-designed antenna mounted over a
specially prepared ground, to over 100 ohms for a Marconi mounted
above poor, unprepared ground that has no radials.

4. Ground loss reduces the antenna's efficiency, because part
of the power being delivered to the antenna is being dissipated in the
ground rather than being radiated. The efficiency can be computed from
the measured value of input resistance by using the formula;
Efficiency equals 36 ohms divided by antenna impedance.

5. The radiation pattern of the Marconi antenna is a half
doughnut. There is no radiation straight up in the direction of the
antenna. The bulk of the radiation occurs at a low elevation angle,
which is what is needed to launch a ground wave.

6. Finally yet importantly, the HF installation shall be used
for communications in excess of line of sight. In other words, the
skipper will want this installation to work when s/he needs to contact
S&R in a life-threatening situation, not just to collect the email
while birthed in some marina.

Ok, now the model part. This antenna is to be mounted on a boat. So
what is all this talk about ground? Well let us look at the Marconi
antenna. It is actually one half of a dipole antenna. Trust me on
this, explaining why and how will just get us lost, but the other half
of the dipole is needed and is provided by the image produced by the
previous mentioned ground. There is that word ground again. Now
Chucky, this is were some clarification needs to be. This is not the
same ground we all have come to know and love when we talk about the
ground in an electrical system like your house (safety ground), your
car (negative return) or your boat (negative return) this is terra
firma, real honest to goodness dry land, and for the time being we
will assume its perfect. Now, by perfect I don't mean a perfect
conductor, hell it's not even close. By perfect I mean a low impedance
to RF currents. The RF ground currents are greatest in the vicinity of
the feed point at the base of the antenna up to a distance of ¼ wave
length from the antenna.

Now we all know there isn't any perfect ground left, the Aztecs used
it all to build their pyramids. So how do we make it perfect or at
least acceptable, we install a counterpoise, a conductor or system of
conductors used as a substitute for perfect ground in an antenna
system. That's were Me's radials or RF ground system comes in. It
should have the effective radius equal to the height of the antenna
(1/4 wave length). I say should have, but in reality the radials do
not all have to be the same length and that losses may be decreased by
adding extra radials near the feed point. These extra radials can be
as short as 1/40 wave length and still be effective. Now, with this
added counterpoise, you can pick up this antenna and move it anywhere
and it will still function very well with a relatively high
efficiency. That's a new term I snuck in without you seeing it coming.
Cool!

Remember assumption #2 above? I said a Marconi had an input impedance
of 36 ohms on perfect ground, well it turns out that with a
counterpoise it has an impedance of 38 ohms. Trust me, it does. Now
let's drag this sucker over to the marina and hoist it onto that boat
we have all been talking about. We get it mounted, counterpoise and
all. Not easy considering its size. A Marconi antenna for a 2 MHz
system is 117 feet high (234/2) with a 117 foot diameter counterpoise.
Big sucker isn't it? How are we going to keep the counterpoise level?
We're not. Let's let it droop, say 45 degrees. I'm cheating here. Some
of you may know that a Marconi with a counterpoise set at a 45 degree
down slop has an input impedance of 50 ohms and just by chance, that
exactly matched the radio set's output impedance, thus maximum RF
power transfer between antenna and radio. Cool!

However, the antenna's efficiency has dropped to 72% and we have this
honking big antenna messing up the aesthetics of our nice boat. Let's
scale it down. Instead of 2 MHz, let's go to the other end of the band
to 30 MHz. That makes the antenna 7.8 feet high with a 7.8 foot radius
counterpoise. Before you start screaming about my math, I allow for a
"velocity factor" of 5%. It's not as big, but it's still ugly and we
need more power to be able to raise S&R when need them.

For aesthetics, let's drop the counterpoise. What happens? The antenna's
impedance goes up to about 100 ohms and its efficiency drops to 36%,
but that isn't the worst of it, the power transfer is not maximum
because the impedances are not matched. The reflective coefficient
will be 0.3333

((100-50)/50)/((100+50)/50), thus a VSWR of 2.0, a return loss of 9.5
dB which means the power actually reaching the antenna is 11.1% so now
I can't reach S&R and I'm going down.



Me is thinking "I'm vindicated" and Chucky is thinking "Another nut
case". You're both right. So why does it work, simple. The antenna isn't
a Marconi; it's an industry standard Marine HF band antenna, 2-30 MHz
bandwidth, 10.8 MHz resonant frequency, 23 feet high and when
connected to an HF radio set configured to its manufacturer's
specifications it will perform admirably. If that were not the case,
we would have had to have had at the very least five quarter wave
Marconi antennae ranging in height from 7.8 to 117 feet and we don't.

That Chucky is the proper use of reductio ad absurdum logic.







"chuck" wrote in message
ink.net...
| Well Bruce/Me, I think you need to pull your two "selves" together!
|
| Sifting through the humorous postings, I think your bottom line is
that
| HF/MF vertical antennas will not work well (sometimes I think you
mean
| will not work at all) unless they are (1) over sal****er with a
return
| path capacitively coupled to the sea (at least for nonmetallic
vessels);
| or (2) over land with 100 quarter-wave radials in marshland.
|
| You have labored to persuade us that less-than-perfect marine RF
ground
| systems are certain to disappoint.
|
| It will surprise you, perhaps, to learn that there are many
thousands of
| vertical HF and MF transmitting antennas in operation in the world
today
| that satisfy none of those conditions, and yet enable effective
| communications activities. Some on land and some over water. These
| installations are supported by rigorous theory as well as by
on-the-air
| performance data.
|
| If you would like to learn more about how this is being done, often
with
| losses of only a few dB below ideal conditions, drop in at
| rec.amateur.radio.antenna and "read the mail." You'll find some
| bombastic assertions and opinions to be sure, but also many reasoned
| analyses and even quantitative experiments. Hope to see you there,
Bruce.
|
| Regards,
|
| Chuck
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Bruce in Alaska wrote:
| In article ,
| Me wrote:
|
|
| In article
.com,
| "Skip Gundlach" wrote:
|
|
| As further background, we have full rails, with the gates
combined
| electrically with brass straps belowdecks, attached to the arch,
the
| pushpit and pulpit. We have about 110 lineal feet of 1" SS tube
rail,
| unless you count the inner rails, plus the arch. In addition we
have
| the standard 4" copper strapping leading to a sintered bronze
Guest
| plane below the boat, and also connected to a 3x5' plate under
the
| workbench top. I think we have a reasonably good ground.
|
| You will never know if you have a "reasonably good ground", unless
| you get yourself an Impedance Bridge, and check it at the
frequencies
| that you commonly work. Anything that is more than 12" away from
the
| water, isn't going to add "diddley-squat" toward building a Low
Impedance
| Wideband RF Ground System, and anyone who tells you otherwise, is
just as
| uneducated about MF/HF Marine Radio Antenna Systems, as you seem
to be.
| I have seen all kinds of Systems that looked very impresive,
untill they
| were evaluated with real insurmentation. 400 Sq Ft of Copper
Screen in
| the Cabin Overhead was proffered, as a really good RF Ground, by a
well
| known Boat Builder, 20 years ago. It didn't work any better than
| having nothing at all, when tested, in a real radio enviorment. If
| you got a Plastic Hull, you are NEVER going to get a Real RF
Ground,
| UNLESS the hull builder was smart, (they never are) and put 200+
Sq
| Ft of screen under the gellcoat down by the keel. Cellulose hulls
| are just as bad, and harder to retrofit that Plastic ones.
| Like I said in my first reply, Autotuners were invented to allow
any
| "Dufus" to think he install an MF/HF Marine Radio System, and save
| himself all that money he would have paid a Compitant Radioman.
| SGC Autotuners are some of the worst of the lot, even if they did
steal
| the design from the real inventers. SGC couldn't even copy the
design
| correctly, and "Old PeeAir" couldn't design his way out of a "Wet
Paper
| Bag".
|
| Me
|
|
| Geeze Louise "Me" give the guy a break...... He was just asking
for
| an opinion....
|
|
| Bruce in alaska

So you're saying that IF the resistance of the sea return path is less
than the resistance of copper, the sea will provide a better return
path. Not much value there. IS the resistance of the sea return path
greater than the resistance of copper? How do you know that? Because
boats float?

You should be aware that at HF, the skin depth is a mere fraction of a
foot so the "conductor cross-section" is fairly small. You might want to
consult an expert.

The readers of this newsgroup are probably aware that, ceteris paribus,
lower resistance grounds are better than higher resistance grounds. What
is at issue here is whether 400 sq. ft. of copper is unusable (no better
than nothing at all) as an RF ground on a vessel, and whether only a
return patch capacitively-coupled to the sea can work.

By the way, your formula for capacitive reactance is in error through
the omission of a variable for Capacitance.


Roger Derby wrote:
Hey, like I said, magic. Bent coat hangers also radiate. The fuselage
gives you a place to terminate the coax shield. Wiggle the connection to
the radiator until the SWR is not too bad.

Also, don't get hung up on "conductivity." Both soil and water have less
than silver, but the resistance is what counts and that's the product of
conductivity and conductor cross-section. If it floats your boat, it has a
LARGE cross-section.

Roger (changing radar detector diodes in 1955)

http://home.earthlink.net/~derbyrm

"Brian Whatcott" wrote in message
...

On Sat, 30 Jul 2005 19:35:36 GMT, Me wrote:


In article ,
"Roger Derby" wrote:


When you talk of capacitive coupling, frequency does matter. (Xc =
1/[2*pi*F]) There's two orders of magnitude difference between HF at
1.8
MHz and VHF at 180 MHz.

"Ground" is one of those elusive concepts that get more magic/conundrum
(aka
BS) than it deserves. A full dipole needs no ground. The whip or
backstay
needs a ground plane so that its "virtual image" creates a full dipole.

Note that aircraft use HF communications with a half dipole antenna
(trailing wire) with no ground plane. Of course they do have an
excellent
antenna height. (Don't hold the end in your fingers to test on the
surface.
When your boss hits the transmit key, it hurts, for weeks.)

Antennae are magic.

Roger

Actually the aircraft skin, if metal, or in the case of doped fabric
covered planes, the tube frames, becomes the RF Ground system for
aircraft MF/HF antenna systems. Thats why you almost NEVER see an MF/HF
Radio installed in a spruce framed, fabric coverd, aircraft, and if you
did see one it wouldn't work very well.


Me who actually has an Aircraft Endorsement on
his First Graph ticket.....


Ah, well, well!
How much area does a light aircraft tube fuselage etc., subtend?

Could it possibly be, like, 200 sq feet?
And it can transmit successfully, using this as its ground plane?

You mean, like a 200 ft ground plane in a boats cabin overhead?

:-)

Brian Whatcott

Hello Mungo,

I'd say the first part rates a C-, mostly for credit in summarizing a
great deal of material. But did you say that the input impedance of a
quarter-wave vertical antenna at 30 MHz is 100 ohms without a
counterpoise? NO ground return path at all? Sorry, but I think maybe you
have fallen prey to Roger's "magic."

Your understanding of what the 23' antenna is and how it works is sadly
wanting. It also does not comport with the material in the earlier
paragraphs. You have not even hinted at the sleight-of-hand introduction
of an antenna tuner and why it is needed, and you have introduced an
antenna without any mention of an RF return path! You are posting to a
newsgroup where the readers are generally familiar with the 23' whip and
the need for an antenna tuner and an RF return path.

Do yourself a favor: find a book on antennas and read it. An elementary
text is a good place to start.

And in regard to the excluded middle, I think I understand now why you
have not found it.

Regards,

Chuck



Mungo Bulge wrote:
I have to agree with Chucky on at least one point. The postings on
this thread are humorous. That must be frustrating to those who were
trying to follow the thread in the hope of learning something useful.

The reason I find it amusing is that both the con's and the pro's are
to some extent correct in their reasoning all be it flowed to one
extent or the other.

As I am really old and lacking any substantial short-term memory,
re-reading the entire thread to glean every single nuance of every
attempted point would be counter productive for me because I would
probably forget what I was doing. I will however make some assumption,
which I will hold true, for the sake of simplicity. By the way Chucky,
the proper use of reduction to the absurd (reductio ad absurdum) logic
would require a model theory which is based on the law of excluded
middle (tertium non datur) which clearly does not apply to the
statements put forth in this thread.

My assumptions:

1. The usual antenna system used with marine transmitters in
the intermediate and high-frequency bands is the Marconi or grounded
radiator, in contrast to the Hertz or ungrounded radiator. Technically
the most basic of antenna, it is an "isotropic radiator". This is a
mythical antenna, which radiates in all directions, as does the light
from a lamp bulb. This assumption is somewhat modified by assumption
#5 below, as a reflection (pardon the witticism) of reality.

2. Depending upon height above ground, the influence of
surrounding objects and other factors, our quarter wave antenna with a
near perfect ground exhibits a nominal input impedance of around 36
ohms.

3. Ground losses affect the feed point impedance and antenna
efficiency. When mounted on a real ground, the input impedance can
range from 38 ohms for a well-designed antenna mounted over a
specially prepared ground, to over 100 ohms for a Marconi mounted
above poor, unprepared ground that has no radials.

4. Ground loss reduces the antenna's efficiency, because part
of the power being delivered to the antenna is being dissipated in the
ground rather than being radiated. The efficiency can be computed from
the measured value of input resistance by using the formula;
Efficiency equals 36 ohms divided by antenna impedance.

5. The radiation pattern of the Marconi antenna is a half
doughnut. There is no radiation straight up in the direction of the
antenna. The bulk of the radiation occurs at a low elevation angle,
which is what is needed to launch a ground wave.

6. Finally yet importantly, the HF installation shall be used
for communications in excess of line of sight. In other words, the
skipper will want this installation to work when s/he needs to contact
S&R in a life-threatening situation, not just to collect the email
while birthed in some marina.

Ok, now the model part. This antenna is to be mounted on a boat. So
what is all this talk about ground? Well let us look at the Marconi
antenna. It is actually one half of a dipole antenna. Trust me on
this, explaining why and how will just get us lost, but the other half
of the dipole is needed and is provided by the image produced by the
previous mentioned ground. There is that word ground again. Now
Chucky, this is were some clarification needs to be. This is not the
same ground we all have come to know and love when we talk about the
ground in an electrical system like your house (safety ground), your
car (negative return) or your boat (negative return) this is terra
firma, real honest to goodness dry land, and for the time being we
will assume its perfect. Now, by perfect I don't mean a perfect
conductor, hell it's not even close. By perfect I mean a low impedance
to RF currents. The RF ground currents are greatest in the vicinity of
the feed point at the base of the antenna up to a distance of ¼ wave
length from the antenna.

Now we all know there isn't any perfect ground left, the Aztecs used
it all to build their pyramids. So how do we make it perfect or at
least acceptable, we install a counterpoise, a conductor or system of
conductors used as a substitute for perfect ground in an antenna
system. That's were Me's radials or RF ground system comes in. It
should have the effective radius equal to the height of the antenna
(1/4 wave length). I say should have, but in reality the radials do
not all have to be the same length and that losses may be decreased by
adding extra radials near the feed point. These extra radials can be
as short as 1/40 wave length and still be effective. Now, with this
added counterpoise, you can pick up this antenna and move it anywhere
and it will still function very well with a relatively high
efficiency. That's a new term I snuck in without you seeing it coming.
Cool!

Remember assumption #2 above? I said a Marconi had an input impedance
of 36 ohms on perfect ground, well it turns out that with a
counterpoise it has an impedance of 38 ohms. Trust me, it does. Now
let's drag this sucker over to the marina and hoist it onto that boat
we have all been talking about. We get it mounted, counterpoise and
all. Not easy considering its size. A Marconi antenna for a 2 MHz
system is 117 feet high (234/2) with a 117 foot diameter counterpoise.
Big sucker isn't it? How are we going to keep the counterpoise level?
We're not. Let's let it droop, say 45 degrees. I'm cheating here. Some
of you may know that a Marconi with a counterpoise set at a 45 degree
down slop has an input impedance of 50 ohms and just by chance, that
exactly matched the radio set's output impedance, thus maximum RF
power transfer between antenna and radio. Cool!

However, the antenna's efficiency has dropped to 72% and we have this
honking big antenna messing up the aesthetics of our nice boat. Let's
scale it down. Instead of 2 MHz, let's go to the other end of the band
to 30 MHz. That makes the antenna 7.8 feet high with a 7.8 foot radius
counterpoise. Before you start screaming about my math, I allow for a
"velocity factor" of 5%. It's not as big, but it's still ugly and we
need more power to be able to raise S&R when need them.

For aesthetics, let's drop the counterpoise. What happens? The antenna's
impedance goes up to about 100 ohms and its efficiency drops to 36%,
but that isn't the worst of it, the power transfer is not maximum
because the impedances are not matched. The reflective coefficient
will be 0.3333

((100-50)/50)/((100+50)/50), thus a VSWR of 2.0, a return loss of 9.5
dB which means the power actually reaching the antenna is 11.1% so now
I can't reach S&R and I'm going down.



Me is thinking "I'm vindicated" and Chucky is thinking "Another nut
case". You're both right. So why does it work, simple. The antenna isn't
a Marconi; it's an industry standard Marine HF band antenna, 2-30 MHz
bandwidth, 10.8 MHz resonant frequency, 23 feet high and when
connected to an HF radio set configured to its manufacturer's
specifications it will perform admirably. If that were not the case,
we would have had to have had at the very least five quarter wave
Marconi antennae ranging in height from 7.8 to 117 feet and we don't.

That Chucky is the proper use of reductio ad absurdum logic.







"chuck" wrote in message
ink.net...
| Well Bruce/Me, I think you need to pull your two "selves" together!
|
| Sifting through the humorous postings, I think your bottom line is
that
| HF/MF vertical antennas will not work well (sometimes I think you
mean
| will not work at all) unless they are (1) over sal****er with a
return
| path capacitively coupled to the sea (at least for nonmetallic
vessels);
| or (2) over land with 100 quarter-wave radials in marshland.
|
| You have labored to persuade us that less-than-perfect marine RF
ground
| systems are certain to disappoint.
|
| It will surprise you, perhaps, to learn that there are many
thousands of
| vertical HF and MF transmitting antennas in operation in the world
today
| that satisfy none of those conditions, and yet enable effective
| communications activities. Some on land and some over water. These
| installations are supported by rigorous theory as well as by
on-the-air
| performance data.
|
| If you would like to learn more about how this is being done, often
with
| losses of only a few dB below ideal conditions, drop in at
| rec.amateur.radio.antenna and "read the mail." You'll find some
| bombastic assertions and opinions to be sure, but also many reasoned
| analyses and even quantitative experiments. Hope to see you there,
Bruce.
|
| Regards,
|
| Chuck
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Bruce in Alaska wrote:
| In article ,
| Me wrote:
|
|
| In article
.com,
| "Skip Gundlach" wrote:
|
|
| As further background, we have full rails, with the gates
combined
| electrically with brass straps belowdecks, attached to the arch,
the
| pushpit and pulpit. We have about 110 lineal feet of 1" SS tube
rail,
| unless you count the inner rails, plus the arch. In addition we
have
| the standard 4" copper strapping leading to a sintered bronze
Guest
| plane below the boat, and also connected to a 3x5' plate under
the
| workbench top. I think we have a reasonably good ground.
|
| You will never know if you have a "reasonably good ground", unless
| you get yourself an Impedance Bridge, and check it at the
frequencies
| that you commonly work. Anything that is more than 12" away from
the
| water, isn't going to add "diddley-squat" toward building a Low
Impedance
| Wideband RF Ground System, and anyone who tells you otherwise, is
just as
| uneducated about MF/HF Marine Radio Antenna Systems, as you seem
to be.
| I have seen all kinds of Systems that looked very impresive,
untill they
| were evaluated with real insurmentation. 400 Sq Ft of Copper
Screen in
| the Cabin Overhead was proffered, as a really good RF Ground, by a
well
| known Boat Builder, 20 years ago. It didn't work any better than
| having nothing at all, when tested, in a real radio enviorment. If
| you got a Plastic Hull, you are NEVER going to get a Real RF
Ground,
| UNLESS the hull builder was smart, (they never are) and put 200+
Sq
| Ft of screen under the gellcoat down by the keel. Cellulose hulls
| are just as bad, and harder to retrofit that Plastic ones.
| Like I said in my first reply, Autotuners were invented to allow
any
| "Dufus" to think he install an MF/HF Marine Radio System, and save
| himself all that money he would have paid a Compitant Radioman.
| SGC Autotuners are some of the worst of the lot, even if they did
steal
| the design from the real inventers. SGC couldn't even copy the
design
| correctly, and "Old PeeAir" couldn't design his way out of a "Wet
Paper
| Bag".
|
| Me
|
|
| Geeze Louise "Me" give the guy a break...... He was just asking
for
| an opinion....
|
|
| Bruce in alaska

Hello Brian,

Yes I believe it does contradict Bruce's own position as he stated it.

The relative performances of the various marine RF return path
techniques is a fascinating, but complex, area in which virtually all
the data are either theoretical or anecdotal. The theoretical materials
don't focus much on RF grounds on small, non-metallic cruising boats.

Imagine the problems one would encounter in order to objectively and
quantitatively compare two competing RF ground systems. An RF impedance
bridge could be used to measure the ground loss resistance of the
competing systems, but the mesurement would have to be made first with
one system on the boat, and then with the other system on the same boat.
If the system being mesured involves copper mesh in the hull while the
boat is built, that is obviously going to be difficult. The measurements
would have to be made in the same location and with the same antenna and
at the same frequencies.

Then there is the problem of knowing what is being measured. For
example, suppose the RF ground system is connected electrically to the
prop, or the rudder post, or a metal keel. How much of the ground loss
reduction is attributable to these items and how much to the RF ground
system itself? It matters, because these are techniques being advocated.

As you can see, it becomes very difficult to make generalizations
(except this one, of course). But boaters want to know these things.
They want to know what RF ground system performs best, and they want to
know trade-offs. If A performs 5% better than B, how much more does it
cost? Most non-ham boaters are not comfortable with the idea of a one
decibel change in transmitted or received signal strength. It is
difficult for them to translate radio performance into those terms so
even if we know how much better A is than B, it is difficult to
communicate that. Even more so when we recognize that there are several
dimensions to performance: galvanic issues, lightning protection, noise,
frequency, etc.

Amazing as it seems, I am not aware of any serious, repeatable,
quantitative comparison of ANY two RF ground systems for cruising boats!
What has been published in boating/cruising magazines does not qualify.
So boaters wind up instead subjected to a barrage of opinion of
questionable quality. One constant emerges from all of this: many
different approaches are in use and some measure of operational success
seems to be obtained from most of them.

My belief is that the better one understands the general idea of an RF
return path (and this applies in the air, on land, and on the water) the
more likely it is that a "better" (cheaper?) RF ground system can be
developed. Unfortunately, this discussion has revealed that this is the
one ingredient most conspicuously absent from the strong overstatements
of opinion we are finding.

Keep up the good work, Brian.

Regards,

Chuck





Brian Whatcott wrote:
On Sat, 30 Jul 2005 21:45:27 GMT, chuck wrote:


Well Bruce/Me, ///
It will surprise you, perhaps, to learn that there are many thousands of
vertical HF and MF transmitting antennas in operation in the world today
that satisfy none of those conditions, and yet enable effective
communications activities. Some on land and some over water. These
installations are supported by rigorous theory as well as by on-the-air
performance data.
///
Regards,

Chuck


I see that he realises that airborne trailing wire antennas can work
well at HF with just a tube fuselage as a ground reference - miles
away from ground!

This just about completely contradicts his earlier posts about ground
references needing to be in close proximity to the ground for
successful HF work, wouldn't you say?

Brian Whatcott Altus OK

Sorry, Chuck. If you don't understand what I'm saying, then I've either
expressed myself badly or you haven't read it accurately. I do have both
the academic and practical background and experience to express an opinion
and despite your prejudice, it is not automatically wrong.

Roger

http://home.earthlink.net/~derbyrm

"chuck" wrote in message
link.net...
So you're saying that IF the resistance of the sea return path is less
than the resistance of copper, the sea will provide a better return path.
Not much value there. IS the resistance of the sea return path greater
than the resistance of copper? How do you know that? Because boats float?

You should be aware that at HF, the skin depth is a mere fraction of a
foot so the "conductor cross-section" is fairly small. You might want to
consult an expert.

The readers of this newsgroup are probably aware that, ceteris paribus,
lower resistance grounds are better than higher resistance grounds. What
is at issue here is whether 400 sq. ft. of copper is unusable (no better
than nothing at all) as an RF ground on a vessel, and whether only a
return patch capacitively-coupled to the sea can work.

By the way, your formula for capacitive reactance is in error through the
omission of a variable for Capacitance.


Roger Derby wrote:
Hey, like I said, magic. Bent coat hangers also radiate. The fuselage
gives you a place to terminate the coax shield. Wiggle the connection to
the radiator until the SWR is not too bad.

Also, don't get hung up on "conductivity." Both soil and water have less
than silver, but the resistance is what counts and that's the product of
conductivity and conductor cross-section. If it floats your boat, it has
a LARGE cross-section.

Roger (changing radar detector diodes in 1955)

http://home.earthlink.net/~derbyrm

"Brian Whatcott" wrote in message
...

On Sat, 30 Jul 2005 19:35:36 GMT, Me wrote:


In article ,
"Roger Derby" wrote:


When you talk of capacitive coupling, frequency does matter. (Xc =
1/[2*pi*F]) There's two orders of magnitude difference between HF at
1.8
MHz and VHF at 180 MHz.

"Ground" is one of those elusive concepts that get more magic/conundrum
(aka
BS) than it deserves. A full dipole needs no ground. The whip or
backstay
needs a ground plane so that its "virtual image" creates a full dipole.

Note that aircraft use HF communications with a half dipole antenna
(trailing wire) with no ground plane. Of course they do have an
excellent
antenna height. (Don't hold the end in your fingers to test on the
surface.
When your boss hits the transmit key, it hurts, for weeks.)

Antennae are magic.

Roger

Actually the aircraft skin, if metal, or in the case of doped fabric
covered planes, the tube frames, becomes the RF Ground system for
aircraft MF/HF antenna systems. Thats why you almost NEVER see an MF/HF
Radio installed in a spruce framed, fabric coverd, aircraft, and if you
did see one it wouldn't work very well.


Me who actually has an Aircraft Endorsement on
his First Graph ticket.....


Ah, well, well!
How much area does a light aircraft tube fuselage etc., subtend?

Could it possibly be, like, 200 sq feet?
And it can transmit successfully, using this as its ground plane?

You mean, like a 200 ft ground plane in a boats cabin overhead?

:-)

Brian Whatcott

"Rusty" wrote in message
...
Skip

Don't forget, the Icom 802 is also going to want an additional
receive-only antenna for the DSC receiver portion. It can't use the main
antenna for this. I'm using the backstay for the 802 HF transceiver, a 23
foot whip on one side for the DSC receiver in the 802, and another 23 foot
whip on the other side for a separate HF receiver (R-71A). The antenna for
the R-71 is also shared with the stereo radio.

The backstay uses an AT-140 tuner. The receive-only antennas don't have
tuners.

Rusty



Sorry, I missed this one on the boat, relying on the web-based info and the
digest versions sent to me.

I'm not familiar with the 802 at all, yet, so didn't know of the separate
DSC antenna receive function. The inference is, then, that my similarly
equipped VHFs will need some separate antenna? I'd thought they'd connect
to a GPS...

Thanks for any insights - and the renaming will try to recapture the thread
to placement rather than esoteric discussions of antenna frequencies and
unrelated theory. Not that I'm not enjoying them - but it's not what I
asked, and I have very limited time to sort, witness missing this post.

L8R

Skip, cleaning up in prep for surgery and being off-line for several weeks

--
Morgan 461 #2
SV Flying Pig
http://tinyurl.com/384p2 - The vessel as Tehamana, as we bought her

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you
didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail
away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore.
Dream. Discover." - Mark Twain

From: "Larry"
Subject: HF antenna placement question
Date: Saturday, July 30, 2005 10:47 PM

Me wrote in news:Me-
:

SGC Autotuners are some of the worst of the lot, even if they did steal
the design from the real inventers. SGC couldn't even copy the design
correctly, and "Old PeeAir" couldn't design his way out of a "Wet Paper
Bag".

Me



Hee hee....Don't hold back, Skip! Tell us what you REALLY think of SGC's
crapware!....(c;

REAL tuners are manually operated and say Nye-Viking on the front of them.
I own the 3KW model from the 60's. Wet noodles explode above 500
watts!...(c;

You can tell if your ground is poor on big ham transmitters. You hear
screaming when you whistle, briefly, into the metal microphone...as your
hands burn in effigy.

73 DE W4CSC

Heh. It wasn't I who commented on SGC...

But now that I am connected for real vs web, I see that there are a
multitude of posts which don't show up on googlegroups' version of RBC/B.

L8R

Skip

Morgan 461 #2
SV Flying Pig
http://tinyurl.com/384p2 - The vessel as Tehamana, as we bought her

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you
didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail
away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore.
Dream. Discover." - Mark Twain

As usual Chucky, you are defending your position by denial of fact.



Did I say the input impedance of a Marconi quarter wave was 100 ohms
if it was without a counterpoise? Assumption #3, so I guess I did. Not
just at 30 MHz, but at any single frequency for which it was designed
to operate.

And I wish you'd stop using that "ground return path" term you keep
throwing around as if it was something you understood or with which
you even had a passing acquaintance. A conductor placed above a ground
plane forms an image in the ground plane such that the resulting
pattern is a composite of the real antenna and the image antenna. This
phenomenon remains in effect until you have spacing between the
conductor and the ground plane approaching a quarter wavelength of the
operating frequency. Above this, you get into a whole new field of
wave propagation that is outside the scope of this discussion, unless
Chucky wants to go there if he feels threatened. Actually Chucky, I'm
not going to try to explain this to you, why don't you grab a copy of
the US Army Field Antenna Handbook and read it. No disrespect intended
towards the US Marine Corps, but whoever writes their manuals seems to
address the lowest common denominator when deciding to what level of
intelligence its audience is operating, therefore Chucky even you can
understand the theory put forth in the handbook (it even has
pictures). Again, I apologize to any US Marine current or past who may
be reading this thread, you are in no way, at least in my mind, to be
considered functioning at Chuckey's level. It's just that the
DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY opted not to exclude the likes of Chucky from
its audience when publishing this handbook.



As for the matching networks (antenna tuner) most practical antennae
require some form of impedance matching between the transmission line
and the radiating elements. The implementation of a matching network
can take on many forms, depending on the operating frequency and
output power. There was no sleight of hand Chucky, in this case, it
has always been present in the equipment package of the boat in
question, remember? This was a functioning system and the OP just
wanted to relocate the antenna.



I do apologise for not quoting my sources and resources, which was
rude of me, but then Chucky never does so I thought it was ok.
However, as you insist: ARRL Handbook, Chapter 17, sec "The Vertical
Antenna"; W9UCW "The Minooka Special" Dec 1974 QST; VE2CV "Technical
Correspondence" Feb 1991 QST; ARRL Handbook, Chapter 17, sec "Ground
Systems"; The W1GHZ Online Microwave Antenna Book; The HAM Radio
Operator's Antenna Manual, by Buck Rogers K4ABT; W5DXP's No-Tuner,
All-HF-Band, Horizontal, Center-Fed Antenna; TM 11-5985-379-14&P,
Operator's, Organizational, Direct Support, And General Support
Maintenance Manual; TM 11-5985-370-12, Operator's And Organizational
Maintenance Manual; The RF Transmission Systems Handbook, Ch 15, Radio
Wave Propagation - Gerhard J. Straub; Ch 16, Antenna Principles -
Pingjuan L. Werner, Anthony J. Ferraro, and Douglas H. Werner; Ch 17,
Practical Antenna Systems - Jerry C. Whitkaer



I could go on, but Chucky, you're not really interested in me, you're
just interested in saying "you're wrong" to everyone until you have
had the last post and can claim victory. Therefore, to that end, I say
you win, go back under your bridge and wait for the next traveler,
Chucky. That is what Trolls do isn't it? While your there, with
nothing to do, try reading some theory,
http://ftp.21ic.com.cn/RFDesign/ is a good place to start, you will
find a copy of the US Army Field Antenna Handbook, although maybe too
advanced, as you would have to get you mind around the concepts. My
daddy once told me to never try to argue with an imbecile, "They drag
you down to their level, then beat you with experience" so I guess I
will leave it at that.



P.S. The reason I have all this reference material, is that the
Marconi is my "weapon of choice", you see I am a Road Warrior, one of
those sleazy WarDrivers who use laptops equipped with wireless
Ethernet cards and remote antennae to acquire internet access over
unsecured Wireless Access Points. My antenna is a quarter-wave Marconi
with a 30° counterpoise. I use 30° because unlike 45°, the 30°
slopping counterpoise gives a slight upward tilt to the radiation
pattern's maximum lob without affecting impedance that adversely. The
increase in effective radiated power more than cancels the loss due to
reflection and power transfer losses due to impedance mismatch.



--


"chuck" wrote in message
news | Hello Mungo,
|
| I'd say the first part rates a C-, mostly for credit in summarizing
a
| great deal of material. But did you say that the input impedance of
a
| quarter-wave vertical antenna at 30 MHz is 100 ohms without a
| counterpoise? NO ground return path at all? Sorry, but I think maybe
you
| have fallen prey to Roger's "magic."
|
| Your understanding of what the 23' antenna is and how it works is
sadly
| wanting. It also does not comport with the material in the earlier
| paragraphs. You have not even hinted at the sleight-of-hand
introduction
| of an antenna tuner and why it is needed, and you have introduced an
| antenna without any mention of an RF return path! You are posting to
a
| newsgroup where the readers are generally familiar with the 23' whip
and
| the need for an antenna tuner and an RF return path.
|
| Do yourself a favor: find a book on antennas and read it. An
elementary
| text is a good place to start.
|
| And in regard to the excluded middle, I think I understand now why
you
| have not found it.
|
| Regards,
|
| Chuck
|
|
|
| Mungo Bulge wrote:
| I have to agree with Chucky on at least one point. The postings on
| this thread are humorous. That must be frustrating to those who
were
| trying to follow the thread in the hope of learning something
useful.
|
| The reason I find it amusing is that both the con's and the pro's
are
| to some extent correct in their reasoning all be it flowed to one
| extent or the other.
|
| As I am really old and lacking any substantial short-term memory,
| re-reading the entire thread to glean every single nuance of every
| attempted point would be counter productive for me because I would
| probably forget what I was doing. I will however make some
assumption,
| which I will hold true, for the sake of simplicity. By the way
Chucky,
| the proper use of reduction to the absurd (reductio ad absurdum)
logic
| would require a model theory which is based on the law of excluded
| middle (tertium non datur) which clearly does not apply to the
| statements put forth in this thread.
|
| My assumptions:
|
| 1. The usual antenna system used with marine transmitters
in
| the intermediate and high-frequency bands is the Marconi or
grounded
| radiator, in contrast to the Hertz or ungrounded radiator.
Technically
| the most basic of antenna, it is an "isotropic radiator". This is
a
| mythical antenna, which radiates in all directions, as does the
light
| from a lamp bulb. This assumption is somewhat modified by
assumption
| #5 below, as a reflection (pardon the witticism) of reality.
|
| 2. Depending upon height above ground, the influence of
| surrounding objects and other factors, our quarter wave antenna
with a
| near perfect ground exhibits a nominal input impedance of around
36
| ohms.
|
| 3. Ground losses affect the feed point impedance and
antenna
| efficiency. When mounted on a real ground, the input impedance can
| range from 38 ohms for a well-designed antenna mounted over a
| specially prepared ground, to over 100 ohms for a Marconi mounted
| above poor, unprepared ground that has no radials.
|
| 4. Ground loss reduces the antenna's efficiency, because
part
| of the power being delivered to the antenna is being dissipated in
the
| ground rather than being radiated. The efficiency can be computed
from
| the measured value of input resistance by using the formula;
| Efficiency equals 36 ohms divided by antenna impedance.
|
| 5. The radiation pattern of the Marconi antenna is a half
| doughnut. There is no radiation straight up in the direction of
the
| antenna. The bulk of the radiation occurs at a low elevation
angle,
| which is what is needed to launch a ground wave.
|
| 6. Finally yet importantly, the HF installation shall be
used
| for communications in excess of line of sight. In other words, the
| skipper will want this installation to work when s/he needs to
contact
| S&R in a life-threatening situation, not just to collect the email
| while birthed in some marina.
|
| Ok, now the model part. This antenna is to be mounted on a boat.
So
| what is all this talk about ground? Well let us look at the
Marconi
| antenna. It is actually one half of a dipole antenna. Trust me on
| this, explaining why and how will just get us lost, but the other
half
| of the dipole is needed and is provided by the image produced by
the
| previous mentioned ground. There is that word ground again. Now
| Chucky, this is were some clarification needs to be. This is not
the
| same ground we all have come to know and love when we talk about
the
| ground in an electrical system like your house (safety ground),
your
| car (negative return) or your boat (negative return) this is terra
| firma, real honest to goodness dry land, and for the time being we
| will assume its perfect. Now, by perfect I don't mean a perfect
| conductor, hell it's not even close. By perfect I mean a low
impedance
| to RF currents. The RF ground currents are greatest in the
vicinity of
| the feed point at the base of the antenna up to a distance of ¼
wave
| length from the antenna.
|
| Now we all know there isn't any perfect ground left, the Aztecs
used
| it all to build their pyramids. So how do we make it perfect or at
| least acceptable, we install a counterpoise, a conductor or system
of
| conductors used as a substitute for perfect ground in an antenna
| system. That's were Me's radials or RF ground system comes in. It
| should have the effective radius equal to the height of the
antenna
| (1/4 wave length). I say should have, but in reality the radials
do
| not all have to be the same length and that losses may be
decreased by
| adding extra radials near the feed point. These extra radials can
be
| as short as 1/40 wave length and still be effective. Now, with
this
| added counterpoise, you can pick up this antenna and move it
anywhere
| and it will still function very well with a relatively high
| efficiency. That's a new term I snuck in without you seeing it
coming.
| Cool!
|
| Remember assumption #2 above? I said a Marconi had an input
impedance
| of 36 ohms on perfect ground, well it turns out that with a
| counterpoise it has an impedance of 38 ohms. Trust me, it does.
Now
| let's drag this sucker over to the marina and hoist it onto that
boat
| we have all been talking about. We get it mounted, counterpoise
and
| all. Not easy considering its size. A Marconi antenna for a 2 MHz
| system is 117 feet high (234/2) with a 117 foot diameter
counterpoise.
| Big sucker isn't it? How are we going to keep the counterpoise
level?
| We're not. Let's let it droop, say 45 degrees. I'm cheating here.
Some
| of you may know that a Marconi with a counterpoise set at a 45
degree
| down slop has an input impedance of 50 ohms and just by chance,
that
| exactly matched the radio set's output impedance, thus maximum RF
| power transfer between antenna and radio. Cool!
|
| However, the antenna's efficiency has dropped to 72% and we have
this
| honking big antenna messing up the aesthetics of our nice boat.
Let's
| scale it down. Instead of 2 MHz, let's go to the other end of the
band
| to 30 MHz. That makes the antenna 7.8 feet high with a 7.8 foot
radius
| counterpoise. Before you start screaming about my math, I allow
for a
| "velocity factor" of 5%. It's not as big, but it's still ugly and
we
| need more power to be able to raise S&R when need them.
|
| For aesthetics, let's drop the counterpoise. What happens? The
antenna's
| impedance goes up to about 100 ohms and its efficiency drops to
36%,
| but that isn't the worst of it, the power transfer is not maximum
| because the impedances are not matched. The reflective coefficient
| will be 0.3333
|
| ((100-50)/50)/((100+50)/50), thus a VSWR of 2.0, a return loss of
9.5
| dB which means the power actually reaching the antenna is 11.1% so
now
| I can't reach S&R and I'm going down.
|
|
|
| Me is thinking "I'm vindicated" and Chucky is thinking "Another
nut
| case". You're both right. So why does it work, simple. The antenna
isn't
| a Marconi; it's an industry standard Marine HF band antenna, 2-30
MHz
| bandwidth, 10.8 MHz resonant frequency, 23 feet high and when
| connected to an HF radio set configured to its manufacturer's
| specifications it will perform admirably. If that were not the
case,
| we would have had to have had at the very least five quarter wave
| Marconi antennae ranging in height from 7.8 to 117 feet and we
don't.
|
| That Chucky is the proper use of reductio ad absurdum logic.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| "chuck" wrote in message
| ink.net...
| | Well Bruce/Me, I think you need to pull your two "selves"
together!
| |
| | Sifting through the humorous postings, I think your bottom line
is
| that
| | HF/MF vertical antennas will not work well (sometimes I think
you
| mean
| | will not work at all) unless they are (1) over sal****er with a
| return
| | path capacitively coupled to the sea (at least for nonmetallic
| vessels);
| | or (2) over land with 100 quarter-wave radials in marshland.
| |
| | You have labored to persuade us that less-than-perfect marine RF
| ground
| | systems are certain to disappoint.
| |
| | It will surprise you, perhaps, to learn that there are many
| thousands of
| | vertical HF and MF transmitting antennas in operation in the
world
| today
| | that satisfy none of those conditions, and yet enable effective
| | communications activities. Some on land and some over water.
These
| | installations are supported by rigorous theory as well as by
| on-the-air
| | performance data.
| |
| | If you would like to learn more about how this is being done,
often
| with
| | losses of only a few dB below ideal conditions, drop in at
| | rec.amateur.radio.antenna and "read the mail." You'll find some
| | bombastic assertions and opinions to be sure, but also many
reasoned
| | analyses and even quantitative experiments. Hope to see you
there,
| Bruce.
| |
| | Regards,
| |
| | Chuck
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| | Bruce in Alaska wrote:
| | In article
,
| | Me wrote:
| |
| |
| | In article
| .com,
| | "Skip Gundlach" wrote:
| |
| |
| | As further background, we have full rails, with the gates
| combined
| | electrically with brass straps belowdecks, attached to the
arch,
| the
| | pushpit and pulpit. We have about 110 lineal feet of 1" SS
tube
| rail,
| | unless you count the inner rails, plus the arch. In addition
we
| have
| | the standard 4" copper strapping leading to a sintered bronze
| Guest
| | plane below the boat, and also connected to a 3x5' plate
under
| the
| | workbench top. I think we have a reasonably good ground.
| |
| | You will never know if you have a "reasonably good ground",
unless
| | you get yourself an Impedance Bridge, and check it at the
| frequencies
| | that you commonly work. Anything that is more than 12" away
from
| the
| | water, isn't going to add "diddley-squat" toward building a
Low
| Impedance
| | Wideband RF Ground System, and anyone who tells you otherwise,
is
| just as
| | uneducated about MF/HF Marine Radio Antenna Systems, as you
seem
| to be.
| | I have seen all kinds of Systems that looked very impresive,
| untill they
| | were evaluated with real insurmentation. 400 Sq Ft of Copper
| Screen in
| | the Cabin Overhead was proffered, as a really good RF Ground,
by a
| well
| | known Boat Builder, 20 years ago. It didn't work any better
than
| | having nothing at all, when tested, in a real radio
enviorment. If
| | you got a Plastic Hull, you are NEVER going to get a Real RF
| Ground,
| | UNLESS the hull builder was smart, (they never are) and put
200+
| Sq
| | Ft of screen under the gellcoat down by the keel. Cellulose
hulls
| | are just as bad, and harder to retrofit that Plastic ones.
| | Like I said in my first reply, Autotuners were invented to
allow
| any
| | "Dufus" to think he install an MF/HF Marine Radio System, and
save
| | himself all that money he would have paid a Compitant
Radioman.
| | SGC Autotuners are some of the worst of the lot, even if they
did
| steal
| | the design from the real inventers. SGC couldn't even copy
the
| design
| | correctly, and "Old PeeAir" couldn't design his way out of a
"Wet
| Paper
| | Bag".
| |
| | Me
| |
| |
| | Geeze Louise "Me" give the guy a break...... He was just
asking
| for
| | an opinion....
| |
| |
| | Bruce in alaska
|
|

"Skip Gundlach on wifi"
skipgundlach.sez.remove.this.part@earthlink.(fish catcher)net wrote in
:

I'm not familiar with the 802 at all, yet, so didn't know of the
separate DSC antenna receive function.

I've got Lionheart's DSC antenna hooked to the handrail right over the
transceiver's location at the chart table. Seems to work fine.

--
Larry

In article ,
Brian Whatcott wrote:

Oh my! Anonymous poster, it was *YOUR* suggestion that an RF ground
of 200 sq ft of mesh under the (external hull) gel-coat was required
for a satisfactory RF ground at HF.

It was the original poster's suggestion of an elevated mesh that
caught your interest, not mine.

As you asked about antenna testing, I should mention that
a supercomputer is not really necessary: there is a handy dandy
gadget ( from MFJ ) which combines several RF test functions like
antenna bridge, SW ratio etc. It ran about $200 as I recall. I
satisfy myself with an LC meter these days - which gets one into the
ball park at $100.
eBay has an MFJ noise bridge at $25 currently.


Hmmm...the capacitance to ground of a few objects in my vicinity runs
about 45 pF per sq ft. Like me, standing on carpet It is just
possible a hi level ground screen of 200 sq ft might get you 200 X 45
pF = 9000 pF

At 3 MHz that would put the capacitive reactance at
1/2pi.f.C ohms = 6 ohms. Not that great. The actual value might
well be quite a bit higher than that.
But that's just me measuring with an instrument, rather than you
guessing how poor it is.
Another thing: the conductivity of sea water does not vary all that
much - it doesn't have much impact on capacitance. But there I go
again, actually measuring things!

Regards

Brian Whatcott
p.s. I have an FCC GROL+rdr. You?

I am not so "Anonymous" as you would think. There are, certainly, folks
who know who "Me" really is. Some even post here.

I didn't "Say or State" that the above WAS required. I stated that "200
sq ft" would certainly provide a "Low Impedance Wideband RF Ground, on
plastic hulled vessles floating in Salt Water." I also introduced the
discreditied concept of "copper screen in the overhead" into the thread,
if you would go back and actually read the whole thread.

Your testing tools seem to be of the consumer variety. Some one should
teach you a bit about modern RF Antenna Design & Testing Tools, one of
these days. Most compitant folks use both RF Network Analysers, and, or
an Antenna Impedance Bridge feeding a Spectrum Analyser with a Tracking
Sweep Generator. Best you come back after you learn to use the tools,
that "the Big Boys" use.

It is just possible that you don't have much of a clue about MF/HF
Marine Antenna Systems and RF Grounds aboard Vessles.

The above statement about some mythical capacitive reactance at 3 Mhz
really shows that your way out of your league in this dicussion. There
are few 3 Mhz Marine Frequencies, (Mostly in alaskan waters) and most
non-commercial MF/HF Marine Radio Users rarely use any below the Maritime
Mobile 4 Mhz Band. There are many 1.6Mhz, 2.0 - 3.3 Mhz, Marine
Frequnecies used in alaska, by commerical users, and a daily basis, and
have been for many years. When was the last time you actually operated,
or for that matter installed, a Private Coast Station, using any
frequency at all, or for that matter any Maritime Mobile Station of any
kind. I operate a Private Coast/ Alaska Public Fixed Station, on a
daily basis, that I designed and installed 20 years ago, and communicate
with vessels all over the North Pacific. Tell us all, about your great
experience in Marine Communications.

The conductivity of Seawater isn't in dispute in this thread on it's
own, what is in dispute seems to be how it compares to fresh water, RF
Grounds used in MF Commercial Radio Stations, and other mediums. What
you fail to understand is that capacative coupling to SeaWater is
extremely Frequency Sensitive, and to design an effective Low Impedance,
"Wideband" RF Ground on a plastic, or cellulose hulled vessel, requires
a very effective coupling to the Seawater over a Wide Frequency Range.
That is the crucks of the problem.

Again, "It is the RF Ground, sonny, the RF Ground"...


Me 1st Class RadioTelegraph, with Seatime Endorsement, Radar
Endorsement, and, wait for it.... Aircraft Endorsement...