Bruce in Alaska wrote in news:fast-
:

If the "Plate" is to used to be one side of a Capacative
Coupling
for the RF Grounding of an MF/HF Antenna System, then your
"Best
Solution" is to use a material with the Lowest Resistance,
Highest
Surface Area, encase it in the Thinest Dielectric Insulating
Film available, and mount it as close as possible to the
SeaWater.
No High Voltage Capacitor, required, as the Dielectric Film
will
be the DC Current Insulator.



Next time you're at sea and bored to tears, connect 100' of
plastic covered wire to the ground post on your tuner, sealed up
on the open end, if you like. The plastic is the "thin
dielectric film" in Bruce's eloquent description. It keeps the
water from eating the wire. Toss it overboard and let it trail
out in the ocean behind the boat, but DON'T FORGET TO REEL IT IN
BEFORE YOU ENTER HARBOR!

There, now you have a great "ocean RF ground" without rummaging
around down in the bilgewater and rats.

Try it before and after with someone at a distance you know and
see how much difference he sees in your signal "out there". It
makes about 5 S-units on Lionheart. Works great, cheap, easy to
deploy and retrieve, not to mention fun.

Oh, before I stop, I wanna mention:

DON'T PUT ANY SHINY CAN TOP AS A DRAG CHUTE LITTLE SEA ANCHOR TO
HOLD IT OUT TIGHT! "Something BIG!" ate my cat food tin can! It
also ate about 35' off the end of my wire! Musta been a WHOPPER!

"They", whoever "they" are, can't grab just the open-ended wire.

Larry
--
Maybe "they" were attracted to my melodious LSB on 75 meters!

On Sat, 13 Oct 2007 01:48:48 +0000, Larry wrote:

DON'T PUT ANY SHINY CAN TOP AS A DRAG CHUTE LITTLE SEA ANCHOR TO
HOLD IT OUT TIGHT! "Something BIG!" ate my cat food tin can! It
also ate about 35' off the end of my wire! Musta been a WHOPPER!

"They", whoever "they" are, can't grab just the open-ended wire.

Ships used to dangle a long line with a spinner on the end from the
stern of a boat or ship. It was attached to a mechanical counter. This
was called a taffrail log. [The one you threw was a chip log.]
Sometimes fish would disappear the spinner. I am surprised how seldom
it seems to have happened.

Casady

(Richard Casady) wrote in
:

Sometimes fish would disappear the spinner. I am surprised how
seldom
it seems to have happened.



I wonder if it were bigger than my catfood can. That might
explain the fewer hits. Someone aboard said, "Hey! Your wire
hit the bottom!", but I pointed out the DEPTH read 325' and my
wire was only 100' long....physics?

I didn't see it happen, just the aftermath...shortened wire. He
must have swallowed the can, leading to some fish cleaner
standing on the fish line at some packing plant to scratch her
head....(c; She'd wonder about my nice bridle I made to hold the
can for max drag.

I used the wire many times after that just like it was. Didn't
seem to make any difference. It's still a great ground plane to
work the tuner against.

My captain gets nervous when I talk on 20 meters and all the
lights in the panel modulate with my voice. It's only 150
watts....(c;


Larry
--
You can tell there's extremely
intelligent life in the universe
because they have never called Earth.