your HF antenna ... insulated backstay, other ?
 

for those who use HF on their boat, i'm curious what antenna choices
you have made. did you go with an insulated backstay or something else
entirely ? how do you have it all set up on your boat ? i've read
that some people just hoist a wire up with some line and hook it to
their antenna tuner (with a ground of course). are you doing anything
more or less fancy ? if you're using an insulated backstay do you
trust the insulators to keep the mast up ? how much maintenance is
involved in your HF antenna setup ? i'm just curious in general what
solutions people have found since i'm researching it now.

thanks in advance.

your HF antenna ... insulated backstay, other ?
 

If you plan to use HF on the amateur frequencies you will need to be
licensed... Go to the local amateur radio club and folks there will
happily help you get a license, tune an antenna, etc..

denny

your HF antenna ... insulated backstay, other ?
 

If you plan to use HF on the amateur...

Denny... could well be that he is just interested in using the
conventional hf marine bands.

At any rate... a good news group for this sort of inquiry is the
"rec.boats.electronics" web site:

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.boats.electronics

They have some real knowledgeable guys that hang out there
when it comes to maritime mobile radio issues. Some of the
key posters are... Larry... Bruce in Alaska... Old Chief Lynn
just to mention a few.

Best regards

Bill (N6TGC)

your HF antenna ... insulated backstay, other ?
 

If you plan to use HF on the amateur frequencies
************************************************** *****

Denny... could well be that he is just interested in using the
conventional hf marine bands.
************************************************** *********************
Yup, could be... Just wanted to make him aware and to point out that
the local ham club is a resource....

denny - k8do

your HF antenna ... insulated backstay, other ?
 

In article .com,
"purple_stars" wrote:

for those who use HF on their boat, i'm curious what antenna choices
you have made. did you go with an insulated backstay or something else
entirely ? how do you have it all set up on your boat ? i've read
that some people just hoist a wire up with some line and hook it to
their antenna tuner (with a ground of course). are you doing anything
more or less fancy ? if you're using an insulated backstay do you
trust the insulators to keep the mast up ? how much maintenance is
involved in your HF antenna setup ? i'm just curious in general what
solutions people have found since i'm researching it now.

thanks in advance.


Purple_stars, One word of advice on installations of MF/HF Marine
Antenna Systems aboard non-metal hulled vessels, It is the RF Ground
System that is the critical design element, NOT the antenna. Just about
anything will work for an antenna, if you have an excellent RF Ground
System. Coversely, if you have a Poor, or Nonexistant RF Ground System,
there is nothing you can do, or no amount of money you can spend, that
will make any antenna a good preformer. Anyone of the OLD Radiomen,
who actually learned their skills back in the Manual Tuner era of
Marine Electronics, will tell you, that a Good RF Ground is the place to
start.

Bruce in alaska one who actually liked the N555 Antenna Tuners
--
add a 2 before @

your HF antenna ... insulated backstay, other ?
 

The advice from Bruce about the RF ground is 100% accurate. When I
first connected up my insulated backstay (yup, it keeps the mast up!) I
couldn't get the antenna to load up very well, and my transmitted
signal was pitiful. A day or so working with copper foil and bronze
screen made all the difference. Lots of area is the key.
I've also sailed on a boat where the owner just had a SS wire from the
masthead to the stern quarter- tensioned with shock cord. Worked fine
as antenna, and was a lot cheaper than a couple of backstay insulators,
too. He had a good RF ground system as well.
John

your HF antenna ... insulated backstay, other ?
 

"purple_stars" wrote in
oups.com:

what antenna choices
you have made.

Insulated backstay works fine....well, once we got rid of the WIRE mainsail
boom rigging that just trashed it whenever the boom was on centerline.
It's nylon, now...

If the masts ever have to come down or be reworked on the ketch, the
triattic will also have insulators added to each end of it and a new wire
installed from the top of the insulated backstay to the center of the
triattic to add a capacitor hat effect to the top of the HF antenna.
Longer is always better on HF.....

your HF antenna ... insulated backstay, other ?
 

Bruce in Alaska wrote in news:bruceg-
:

Anyone of the OLD Radiomen,
who actually learned their skills back in the Manual Tuner era of
Marine Electronics, will tell you, that a Good RF Ground is the place to
start.


Remember when the ground came off the tuner and you got your fingers burned
as it came into resonance?....(c;

your HF antenna ... insulated backstay, other ?
 

In article ,
Larry wrote:

Bruce in Alaska wrote in news:bruceg-
:

Anyone of the OLD Radiomen,
who actually learned their skills back in the Manual Tuner era of
Marine Electronics, will tell you, that a Good RF Ground is the place to
start.


Remember when the ground came off the tuner and you got your fingers burned
as it came into resonance?....(c;


I still have the scars from all the RF burns, I have collected over the
years, in both the Marine and Broadcast Industry......

Bruce in alaska
--
add a 2 before @

your HF antenna ... insulated backstay, other ?
 

Larry wrote:
Bruce in Alaska wrote in news:bruceg-
:


I still have the scars from all the RF burns, I have collected over the
years, in both the Marine and Broadcast Industry......




Channel 24, our Fox network station in Charleston, is the highest powered
UHF TV station in SC, 25MW ERP. RF arcing and high voltage flashovers at
the transmitter are MOST impressive....(c;

Good thing the antenna is 2000' above the parking lot....


2000 feet??
That would be higher than the worlds tallest free standing
structure...the CN Tower in Toronto.
http://www.cntower.ca/portal/
Do they hang their antenna from a 'sky hook'?

your HF antenna ... insulated backstay, other ?
 

Don White wrote in news:ZKg0g.60624$VV4.1122705
@ursa-nb00s0.nbnet.nb.ca:

2000 feet??
That would be higher than the worlds tallest free standing
structure...the CN Tower in Toronto.
http://www.cntower.ca/portal/
Do they hang their antenna from a 'sky hook'?



Ok, you got me. Their antenna isn't at the top of the tower the 3
stations are on:

WTAT-TV SC CHARLESTON USA

Licensee: WTAT LICENSEE, LLC
Service Designation: TV NTSC (analog) television station
Channel: 24 530 - 536 MHz Licensed
File No.: BLCT-19900418KE Facility ID number: 416
CDBS Application ID No.: 147538

32° 56' 24.00" N Latitude

79° 41' 45.00" W Longitude (NAD 27)

Polarization: Horizontal (H)
Effective Radiated Power (ERP): 5000. kW ERP
Antenna Height Above Average Terrain: 542. meters HAAT
Antenna Height Above Mean Sea Level: 544. meters AMSL
Antenna Height Above Ground Level: 539. meters AGL

TV Zone: 2
Frequency Offset: 0 (zero)


Directional Antenna ID No.: 18713 Pattern Rotation:
0.00
Antenna Make: DIE Antenna Model: ODD900418KE

Relative Field values for directional antenna Relative Field
polar plot
Relative field values do not include any pattern rotation that may be
indicated above.

0° 0.915 60° 0.632 120° 0.403 180° 0.317
240° 0.825 300° 0.988
10° 0.885 70° 0.522 130° 0.443 190° 0.407
250° 0.858 310° 0.999
20° 0.858 80° 0.407 140° 0.443 200° 0.522
260° 0.886 320° 0.999
30° 0.825 90° 0.317 150° 0.403 210° 0.632
270° 0.915 330° 0.988
40° 0.782 100° 0.296 160° 0.342 220° 0.718
280° 0.943 340° 0.968
50° 0.718 110° 0.342 170° 0.296 230° 0.782
290° 0.968 350° 0.943

And, they're only running a mere 5000 KW ERP, still the most powerful UHF
station in SC. The collector voltage on the big klystrons is 25KV.

WCSC-TV5 is the top antenna:

WCSC-TV SC CHARLESTON USA

Licensee: WCSC, INC.
Service Designation: TV NTSC (analog) television station
Channel: 5 76 - 82 MHz Licensed
File No.: BMLCT-20050628AAY Facility ID number: 71297
CDBS Application ID No.: 1068924

32° 55' 28.00" N Latitude

79° 41' 58.00" W Longitude (NAD 27)

Polarization: Horizontal (H)
Effective Radiated Power (ERP): 100. kW ERP
Antenna Height Above Average Terrain: 596. meters HAAT
Antenna Height Above Mean Sea Level: 599.9 meters AMSL
Antenna Height Above Ground Level: 595. meters AGL

They're at 600 meters. Between Channel 4 and 5's antennas is a work
platform. On that platform is one of our 2 meter ham repeaters on
147.300 Mhz. 100 miles in this flat country is easy with 50 watts...(c;

The towers are right along the ICW in Awendaw, SC, just north of Mt
Pleasant. There were 3 towers until Channel 24's monster fell feet from
a lady's house in Hurricane Hugo. She reported it made a loud noise....

The elevator ride up to the repeater makes it feel like 10,000 ft. You
can't see your car in the parking lot and the tower appears to disappear
to a point below you. Clouds pass through you or below you, a very eerie
feeling. The view out to sea from the platform is simply beautiful. How
the tower and repeater survive our big thunderstorms is amazing.

But, alas, we digress off topic....(c;
Dead Wreckoners have no trouble N of Charleston getting a bearing on
them, even at night when their very high intensity strobes clearly mark
their presence.

your HF antenna ... insulated backstay, other ?
 

I use an insulated backstay. It's a bit tricky because the main
backstay is split about 20' above the deck, like a big inverted Y. I
ended up using three insulators, 1 at the top of the backstay about 6'
short of the mast, one at the Y to isolate 1 leg, and another at the
base of the other leg of the Y above the deck. The whole thing is like
an inverted Y with one leg of the V portion cut off. (Hope that makes
sense.)

The rig itself is an ICOM 706 MkII with their AH-1 random wire antenna
tuner. I have a dynaplate on the outside of the hull that forms part of
the ground system, and the enclosed lead keel acts as a counterpoise.

I've had excellent success with this setup, and so far no maintenance at
all (only been a year). Even with the sunspot cycle at its low point
I've made contacts throughout Europe and Russia, Africa, etc.

purple_stars wrote:
for those who use HF on their boat, i'm curious what antenna choices
you have made. did you go with an insulated backstay or something else
entirely ? how do you have it all set up on your boat ? i've read
that some people just hoist a wire up with some line and hook it to
their antenna tuner (with a ground of course). are you doing anything
more or less fancy ? if you're using an insulated backstay do you
trust the insulators to keep the mast up ? how much maintenance is
involved in your HF antenna setup ? i'm just curious in general what
solutions people have found since i'm researching it now.

thanks in advance.