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I have run both the outbacker and Large Shakespeare whip on 20 meters
marine. The outbacker was a test as a backup on a boat with a back stay antenna . Neither antenna is in the same class as a backstay. The outbacker was better than the whip...though the boat with the whip may well have had ground problems. Switching the outbacker and the backstay you could here the stations vanish. It was still possible to work the states from off Baja but you needed somebody on the state end with real good equipment. After playing controller on Pac Sea Net for a few years the boats that get out well almost exclusively have backstay antennas. Jim Donohue "John Proctor" wrote in message news:2005032420245216807%lost@nowhereorg... On 2005-03-24 15:09:27 +1100, Larry W4CSC said: jeannette wrote in : That's one of the reason I like the Outbacker. Besides it's made in Oz... Jeannette I've never been impressed by the Outbackers, nothing but hookup wire wrapped around a fiberglass rod with plastic taps in the continuously loaded coil whip. It's too short for a good radiation pattern below 20 meters with way too much loading and you can't put any real RF power to it which will destroy the hookup wire it's made of. "Homebrew" comes to mind under the shrink wrap exterior. Some have commented they didn't like having to go out to change the taps. I'm curious how they keep the salt out of the little holes from corroding it all up. The longest screwdriver antennas would make a MUCH more efficient HF tunable antenna for all the bands as they have continuous coverage if we could figure out how to keep from drowning their coils in seawater.... http://www.eham.net/reviews/detail/1...90cf2ed1290b68 d5d1d http://home.earthlink.net/~jimlux/ra...crewdriver.htm http://www.dxengineering.com/Product...cID=8&DeptID=2 http://www.n2vz.com/ automatic control of screwdriver antennas....autotuner! http://www.kj7u.com/ KJ7U's screwdriver with the rubber boot looks very promising for marine use.... http://www.wb0w.com/tarheel/tarheel.htm Tarheel says theirs is for marine use. The key to all these antennas is they use a LARGE, EFFICIENT, center-loaded coil with a continuous tap that allows you, or an autotuner, to put the tuning of this antenna EXACTLY on your frequency, not "close enough" like an outbacker. ANY frequency as the coil is continously tuned, not banded. The idea of tuning by remote control, from the nav station for instance, is much nicer than having to go out to the outbacker in the weather on the stern to fool around with that stupid tap..... The longer the whip on top of it...the better because it reduces the amount of loading coil necessary to tune it..... Don't knock it til you try it! I would agree that the taps present a problem in the maritime environment (possibly) but many hams down under use the outbacker and swear by them. So unless you have first hand experience using them your feelings count for nothing! Too many people make judgements about products without trying them! No first hand experience value of opinion = 0! -- Regards, John Proctor VK3JP, VKV6789 S/V Chagall |