On Fri, 12 Oct 2007 09:51:03 -0400, Martin Baxter
wrote:

wrote:

On Thu, 11 Oct 2007 09:48:49 -0400, Martin Baxter
wrote:

Evan Gatehouse wrote:

Never seen this discussed befo

Could I use thin stainless steel foil instead of copper foil in the
bilge as a ground for a long wire (backstay antenna) ham radio setup?

Evan Gatehouse

You may get some electrolysis where your copper ground connects to the
foil, if you have any water in the bilge and it's saline you certainly
will. You'll probably end up with a fairly high resistance (bad)
connection in short order.

Cheers
Marty

Higher resistance then the connection to the stainless back stay?

Only if your backstay spends long periods of time submerged, but then
you'll probably have other larger problems. ;-)

Cheers
Marty

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To obtain capacitance coupling to the ocean the plate has only to be
below the external water line and I have not seen too many boats with
bilge water that high.

Further if the plate is only acting as the ground plane in an antenna
system then to avoid electrolyses the RF ground should be connected to
the plate through high voltage capacitors thus no DC current on the
plate.

If connections are made with proper tin plated wire and terminals
there is no reason that corrosion should be any more a problem then
with any other electrical systems mounted below the cabin sole.



Bruce in Bangkok
(brucepaigeATgmailDOTcom)