Planning to install SSB on our 43 ft sloop. Question is should I go
through the effort to install insulators and use the backstay as the
antenna or should I go with the whip style. Have a radar pole mount
aft and could mount the whip there. Plenty of room and height not a
concern. Recommendations appreciated. Please include pros and cons
of either installation.

Thanks

Grant Ziebell
Pensacola, FL

A few thoughts from a user. There are several experts in this group
and I, too, would be interested in their thoughts, as I have not yet
made this decision for Fintry. The masthead wire is cheaper for us,
as it doesn't need to support anything but its own weight and to pull
the mast up from the lowered position.

1) Since the whip is a constant price, for a sailboat it becomes more
attractive as the boat gets bigger and the insulators for the backstay
go from expensive to outrageous.

2) The insulators interfere with several useful rigging options,
including hoisting a special sail on the backstay to prevent the boat
from tacking about her anchor. You want to think about possible
interactions between the top batten, the roach, and the upper
insulator.

3) The backstay rig is up and out of the way, but its feed wire is
potentially dangerous while transmitting. The feed wire is easier to
protect on the whip.

4) Many whips (particularly the cheaper ones) require a two point
mount -- base and two or three feet above the base. Others can be
mounted on a flat surface, but make sure it's strong, as there's a lot
of leverage in a seaway. (It's not called a whip for nothing.)

5) I get mixed reports on which will give better results. Many of the
people who answer the question have a horse in the race.

6) While Shakespeare is the "standard" yacht brand -- that is, West
Marine sells them -- you may want to look at Digital Antenna and
Comrod.
http://www.shakespeare-marine.com/antennas/ssb.htm
http://www.digitalantenna.com/ssb500.html
http://www.comrod.com/v2/Marine/pages/mar_1.asp

7) If you lose your mast, you still have the whip (yes, of course the
falling mast may wipe out the whip). This might just be when you want
to phone home. With the backstay rig, you have to have another way as
a backup (another antenna or some other long range device --
Inmarsat-C, for example).

Jim Woodward
www.mvFintry.com





(Grant Ziebell) wrote in message om...
Planning to install SSB on our 43 ft sloop. Question is should I go
through the effort to install insulators and use the backstay as the
antenna or should I go with the whip style. Have a radar pole mount
aft and could mount the whip there. Plenty of room and height not a
concern. Recommendations appreciated. Please include pros and cons
of either installation.

Thanks

Grant Ziebell
Pensacola, FL

In article ,
(Jim Woodward) wrote:

A few thoughts from a user. There are several experts in this group
and I, too, would be interested in their thoughts, as I have not yet
made this decision for Fintry. The masthead wire is cheaper for us,
as it doesn't need to support anything but its own weight and to pull
the mast up from the lowered position.

1) Since the whip is a constant price, for a sailboat it becomes more
attractive as the boat gets bigger and the insulators for the backstay
go from expensive to outrageous.

2) The insulators interfere with several useful rigging options,
including hoisting a special sail on the backstay to prevent the boat
from tacking about her anchor. You want to think about possible
interactions between the top batten, the roach, and the upper
insulator.

3) The backstay rig is up and out of the way, but its feed wire is
potentially dangerous while transmitting. The feed wire is easier to
protect on the whip.

4) Many whips (particularly the cheaper ones) require a two point
mount -- base and two or three feet above the base. Others can be
mounted on a flat surface, but make sure it's strong, as there's a lot
of leverage in a seaway. (It's not called a whip for nothing.)

5) I get mixed reports on which will give better results. Many of the
people who answer the question have a horse in the race.

6) While Shakespeare is the "standard" yacht brand -- that is, West
Marine sells them -- you may want to look at Digital Antenna and
Comrod.
http://www.shakespeare-marine.com/antennas/ssb.htm
http://www.digitalantenna.com/ssb500.html
http://www.comrod.com/v2/Marine/pages/mar_1.asp

7) If you lose your mast, you still have the whip (yes, of course the
falling mast may wipe out the whip). This might just be when you want
to phone home. With the backstay rig, you have to have another way as
a backup (another antenna or some other long range device --
Inmarsat-C, for example).

Jim Woodward
www.mvFintry.com


1 & 2. Backstay antenna systems are very nice, and handy, but as you
point out do have some limitations. Whips are usually a poor substitue
for a good wire antenna, as they try to approximate a long wire by adding
coil impedance to replace the wire length.

3. What you need is Proper Antenna Leadin Wire. The "Big Boys" use
GTO-15 type wire. It is esentially Sparkplug Wire, with 15000 Volt
insulation, and was specifically designed for this service.

4. Whips just are to compromised on most installations to provide
acceptable radiation efficency, when compared to a wire antenna.

5. Schakkyspeer has always provided what the asteticlly pleasing
noncommercial boat owner looked for in an antenna. The thing that
always drove my recommendations was. "Do you want it to look good,
or do you want it to work." Many a vessel owner said the former, but
came back a year later and replied the later, after a year of less than
stellar results. They also complain about the costs of "doing it right"
the second time around. I alwasy just pointed out that they had made
the intial desission against my advice and got what they paid for.
It is so much easier to do antenna designs as the vessel is being built,
rather than retrofitting it later.

6. Again you will not find a lot of Schakkyspeer HF & MF Antenna's on
Commecial vessels as these guys depend on their radio's for business,
and that means it has to work ALL time. In the North Pacific most
of the guy's are using Morad Antennas for whips, or just wire antennas.

7. Years ago I oufitted a few Racing Sailers with emergency wire
antennas, that used Helium ballons to hoist the 75 ft wire. Worked
great for one guy who was demasted 500 miles south of Kodiak, AK, and
had to limp into Yakatat on the AUX. Had a Ham aboard who knew how to
string a wire.

The most important thing to remember in HF & MF antenna design, is
"What is the Radiation Resistance of the Antenna at the Lowest Frequency
that one is entending to operate." If you don't plan on using 2182 Khz,
that is one thing, but if you need MF coverage, Grounding Design is
CRITICAL for best operation. Metal Hulls are easy, wood or plastic is
a horse of another color, BIG TIME. when your out on the High Seas and
in trouble, this is not the time to find out your systems is "In the
****ter", and always has been.......


Bruce in alaska
--
add a 2 before @

I hoped you'd have some thoughts here, Bruce, because you've always made a
lot of sense in this general area.

For Fintry, for use primarily for SailMail and talking to Herb Hilgenberg,
would you use a whip or a wire? While we could shout for help on 2182 and
everything else available, little else will happen below 4mhz.

Wire would be between jackstaff and masthead, about 48' total. see
http://www.mvfintry.com/pix/felev800.png for a profile drawing, although the
jackstaff doesn't show. If this is your choice, where would you put the
insulators? The tuner would presumably go at the base of the mast.

For a whip, I've been looking at the Comrod AT100, which is easy to get in
the UK. http://www.comrod.com/v2/Marine/pages/mar_1.asp

Fintry is steel, with an aluminum wheelhouse, so grounding is easy.


Thanks,


--
Jim Woodward
www.mvFintry.com



"Bruce in Alaska" wrote in message
...
In article ,
(Jim Woodward) wrote:

A few thoughts from a user. There are several experts in this group
and I, too, would be interested in their thoughts, as I have not yet
made this decision for Fintry. The masthead wire is cheaper for us,
as it doesn't need to support anything but its own weight and to pull
the mast up from the lowered position.

1) Since the whip is a constant price, for a sailboat it becomes more
attractive as the boat gets bigger and the insulators for the backstay
go from expensive to outrageous.

2) The insulators interfere with several useful rigging options,
including hoisting a special sail on the backstay to prevent the boat
from tacking about her anchor. You want to think about possible
interactions between the top batten, the roach, and the upper
insulator.

3) The backstay rig is up and out of the way, but its feed wire is
potentially dangerous while transmitting. The feed wire is easier to
protect on the whip.

4) Many whips (particularly the cheaper ones) require a two point
mount -- base and two or three feet above the base. Others can be
mounted on a flat surface, but make sure it's strong, as there's a lot
of leverage in a seaway. (It's not called a whip for nothing.)

5) I get mixed reports on which will give better results. Many of the
people who answer the question have a horse in the race.

6) While Shakespeare is the "standard" yacht brand -- that is, West
Marine sells them -- you may want to look at Digital Antenna and
Comrod.
http://www.shakespeare-marine.com/antennas/ssb.htm
http://www.digitalantenna.com/ssb500.html
http://www.comrod.com/v2/Marine/pages/mar_1.asp

7) If you lose your mast, you still have the whip (yes, of course the
falling mast may wipe out the whip). This might just be when you want
to phone home. With the backstay rig, you have to have another way as
a backup (another antenna or some other long range device --
Inmarsat-C, for example).

Jim Woodward
www.mvFintry.com


1 & 2. Backstay antenna systems are very nice, and handy, but as you
point out do have some limitations. Whips are usually a poor substitue
for a good wire antenna, as they try to approximate a long wire by adding
coil impedance to replace the wire length.

3. What you need is Proper Antenna Leadin Wire. The "Big Boys" use
GTO-15 type wire. It is esentially Sparkplug Wire, with 15000 Volt
insulation, and was specifically designed for this service.

4. Whips just are to compromised on most installations to provide
acceptable radiation efficency, when compared to a wire antenna.

5. Schakkyspeer has always provided what the asteticlly pleasing
noncommercial boat owner looked for in an antenna. The thing that
always drove my recommendations was. "Do you want it to look good,
or do you want it to work." Many a vessel owner said the former, but
came back a year later and replied the later, after a year of less than
stellar results. They also complain about the costs of "doing it right"
the second time around. I alwasy just pointed out that they had made
the intial desission against my advice and got what they paid for.
It is so much easier to do antenna designs as the vessel is being built,
rather than retrofitting it later.

6. Again you will not find a lot of Schakkyspeer HF & MF Antenna's on
Commecial vessels as these guys depend on their radio's for business,
and that means it has to work ALL time. In the North Pacific most
of the guy's are using Morad Antennas for whips, or just wire antennas.

7. Years ago I oufitted a few Racing Sailers with emergency wire
antennas, that used Helium ballons to hoist the 75 ft wire. Worked
great for one guy who was demasted 500 miles south of Kodiak, AK, and
had to limp into Yakatat on the AUX. Had a Ham aboard who knew how to
string a wire.

The most important thing to remember in HF & MF antenna design, is
"What is the Radiation Resistance of the Antenna at the Lowest Frequency
that one is entending to operate." If you don't plan on using 2182 Khz,
that is one thing, but if you need MF coverage, Grounding Design is
CRITICAL for best operation. Metal Hulls are easy, wood or plastic is
a horse of another color, BIG TIME. when your out on the High Seas and
in trouble, this is not the time to find out your systems is "In the
****ter", and always has been.......


Bruce in alaska
--
add a 2 before @

Hi Grant,

We have a Shakespeare 23' whip on the transom and it works
great. Boat came that way. I did move the antenna tuner back
into the area below then antenna. Mount it to the back side of the
bulkhead at the aft end of your port lazarette, right around the
corner around the port propane locker. I'll send you some
digipics of our installation.

Doug
s/v Callista
\
"Grant Ziebell" wrote in message
m...
Planning to install SSB on our 43 ft sloop. Question is should I go
through the effort to install insulators and use the backstay as the
antenna or should I go with the whip style. Have a radar pole mount
aft and could mount the whip there. Plenty of room and height not a
concern. Recommendations appreciated. Please include pros and cons
of either installation.

Thanks

Grant Ziebell
Pensacola, FL

In article ,
"Jim Woodward" jameslwoodward at attbi dot com wrote:

I hoped you'd have some thoughts here, Bruce, because you've always made a
lot of sense in this general area.

For Fintry, for use primarily for SailMail and talking to Herb Hilgenberg,
would you use a whip or a wire? While we could shout for help on 2182 and
everything else available, little else will happen below 4mhz.

Wire would be between jackstaff and masthead, about 48' total. see
http://www.mvfintry.com/pix/felev800.png for a profile drawing, although the
jackstaff doesn't show. If this is your choice, where would you put the
insulators? The tuner would presumably go at the base of the mast.

For a whip, I've been looking at the Comrod AT100, which is easy to get in
the UK. http://www.comrod.com/v2/Marine/pages/mar_1.asp

Fintry is steel, with an aluminum wheelhouse, so grounding is easy.


Thanks,


--
Jim Woodward
www.mvFintry.com

Jim,


If it was me, and I am by no means a "Sailer", but just an "Old Fud"
with 35 years in the Marine Electronics field, and I wanted the very best
MF and HF Rf Anrenna System for a wind driven vessel, I would build
the BEST Grouding System possible into the hull. this because a good
ground makes up for a lot in antenna design, and a bad ground can't
support even the absolute best antenna. For an antenna, I would side
mount a 28Ft Straight Morad whip at the top of the mast, with 18"
standoffs, and then connect that to a vertical PhosperBronze wire,
suspended by 6" insulators, straight down the mastline, keeping it at
least 12" away from any of the grounded halyards and stays that hold the
mast up. Then take the antenna from the PhospherBronze to a 6" Ceramic
ThruHouse Insulator with GTO-15, and on the inside another GTO-15
jumper to the antenna tuner. Connect the antenna tuner to my BEST RF
Ground System, with 4" wide copper foil layed against the bulkhead and
fixed in place with a coating of fiberlay resin.

Resaon for a Straight Whip over a Loaded Whip? (Morad makes both kinds)
No funny impedance bump at the loading coil frequency, for the autotuner
to figure out. Autotuners firmware really don't do well when faced with
complex impedances coming from the antenna, and they absolutly will not
tune 1/2 wave frequency of the antenna system. So pick a antenna system
design that puts the 1/2 wavelength point in a section of the band you
never want to transmit on. Back before autotuners, when all Marine Radios
were channelized and fixed tuned, a loaded whip was very nice to use, as
it provided a much better way to get a lower impedance at 2.0 Mhz and
one could be sure that the tuner wasn't tuned to a "Kinky" or False
node on the antenna, but with auto tuners this is left to the firmware,
and you can only put so much code in the tuner to account for stange and
"Kinky" antennas.

The above antenna system give you 28 Ft of whip plus 48 FT of mast plus
a few ft of GTO say 3, for a total of around 80 Ft vertical. Now that
would be just about 3.0 Mhz for a 1/4 wave and long enough to very good
at 2182.0 Khz and easily within the tuning range for most autotuners at
2.0Mhz. It also puts the 1/2 wavelength around 6.1 Mhz which is a good
place for a marine and Ham dual use antenna system to be.

Now most "Sailers" will have some problems with the above for a variety
of reasons, but I always like to say, "Do you want it to work, or do you
want it to look good, and, or, be out of the way and not a hazard to
ussuspecting guests who should never leave the cabin in the first place."
This is the Age Old Question. On BIG Ships the antenna systems for LF,
MF, and HF are always on the top of the Wheelhouse or on the next deck
aft. They are there for a reason. To keep them away from the crew
running around on deck. On a wind powered craft this just isn't possible
so the next best thing is to keep the people relativly away from the
antenna, and if they do get burned well, "That's a Sailer's Life".

I once did a SOLAS Inspection on a 100+ ft Sailing Rig that had a
complete Radio Suite installed. It had a Top Hat offset mounted at the
top of the Mainmast forward, for 500Khz, and a loaded whip offset aft
for MF. Both were feed by seperate Phos/Bronze feeds fron the Radio
Shack which was directly under the mainmast. HF antennas were just
straight wires running down like halyards from the spreader at 50 Ft.
on the mainmast. Vhf was a pair of Morad 156HD's side mounted on each
side of the Crowsnest, just under the LF and MF antennas at 80ft, and
1/2" heliax running down a milled grove in the mainmast. The operator
was an Old Seadog, who retired from Tramper Service on the China Run for
American Presidents Lines, and he used to work his buddies every day on
Cw, voice, and tty, and had the Logbooks to prove it. The inspection
went off without a hitch, and I was very inpressed with the installation
that this Old Boy had done on a replica vessel.

Bruce in alaska

--
Bruce (semiretired powderman & exFCC Field Inspector for Southeastern Alaska)
add a 2 before @
Bruce Gordon * Debora Gordon R.N. Bruce's Trading Post
P.O. Box EXI Excursion Inlet South
Juneau, Alaska 99850 Excursion Inlet, Alaska 99850
www.btpost.net www.99850.net

Thanks very much for the comprehensive answer. Fintry isn't a sailboat (see
http://www.mvfintry.com/pix/felev800.png ) but she does have a mast and
already has the insulator in the wheelhouse top. The 48' is the distance
between the bow and the masthead -- the masthead is about 15' above the
wheelhouse top. And the ground is easy, as the boat is steel.



--
Jim Woodward
www.mvFintry.com


..
..
"Bruce Gordon" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"Jim Woodward" jameslwoodward at attbi dot com wrote:

I hoped you'd have some thoughts here, Bruce, because you've always made
a
lot of sense in this general area.

For Fintry, for use primarily for SailMail and talking to Herb
Hilgenberg,
would you use a whip or a wire? While we could shout for help on 2182
and
everything else available, little else will happen below 4mhz.

Wire would be between jackstaff and masthead, about 48' total. see
http://www.mvfintry.com/pix/felev800.png for a profile drawing, although
the
jackstaff doesn't show. If this is your choice, where would you put the
insulators? The tuner would presumably go at the base of the mast.

For a whip, I've been looking at the Comrod AT100, which is easy to get
in
the UK. http://www.comrod.com/v2/Marine/pages/mar_1.asp

Fintry is steel, with an aluminum wheelhouse, so grounding is easy.


Thanks,


--
Jim Woodward
www.mvFintry.com

Jim,


If it was me, and I am by no means a "Sailer", but just an "Old Fud"
with 35 years in the Marine Electronics field, and I wanted the very best
MF and HF Rf Anrenna System for a wind driven vessel, I would build
the BEST Grouding System possible into the hull. this because a good
ground makes up for a lot in antenna design, and a bad ground can't
support even the absolute best antenna. For an antenna, I would side
mount a 28Ft Straight Morad whip at the top of the mast, with 18"
standoffs, and then connect that to a vertical PhosperBronze wire,
suspended by 6" insulators, straight down the mastline, keeping it at
least 12" away from any of the grounded halyards and stays that hold the
mast up. Then take the antenna from the PhospherBronze to a 6" Ceramic
ThruHouse Insulator with GTO-15, and on the inside another GTO-15
jumper to the antenna tuner. Connect the antenna tuner to my BEST RF
Ground System, with 4" wide copper foil layed against the bulkhead and
fixed in place with a coating of fiberlay resin.

Resaon for a Straight Whip over a Loaded Whip? (Morad makes both kinds)
No funny impedance bump at the loading coil frequency, for the autotuner
to figure out. Autotuners firmware really don't do well when faced with
complex impedances coming from the antenna, and they absolutly will not
tune 1/2 wave frequency of the antenna system. So pick a antenna system
design that puts the 1/2 wavelength point in a section of the band you
never want to transmit on. Back before autotuners, when all Marine Radios
were channelized and fixed tuned, a loaded whip was very nice to use, as
it provided a much better way to get a lower impedance at 2.0 Mhz and
one could be sure that the tuner wasn't tuned to a "Kinky" or False
node on the antenna, but with auto tuners this is left to the firmware,
and you can only put so much code in the tuner to account for stange and
"Kinky" antennas.

The above antenna system give you 28 Ft of whip plus 48 FT of mast plus
a few ft of GTO say 3, for a total of around 80 Ft vertical. Now that
would be just about 3.0 Mhz for a 1/4 wave and long enough to very good
at 2182.0 Khz and easily within the tuning range for most autotuners at
2.0Mhz. It also puts the 1/2 wavelength around 6.1 Mhz which is a good
place for a marine and Ham dual use antenna system to be.

Now most "Sailers" will have some problems with the above for a variety
of reasons, but I always like to say, "Do you want it to work, or do you
want it to look good, and, or, be out of the way and not a hazard to
ussuspecting guests who should never leave the cabin in the first place."
This is the Age Old Question. On BIG Ships the antenna systems for LF,
MF, and HF are always on the top of the Wheelhouse or on the next deck
aft. They are there for a reason. To keep them away from the crew
running around on deck. On a wind powered craft this just isn't possible
so the next best thing is to keep the people relativly away from the
antenna, and if they do get burned well, "That's a Sailer's Life".

I once did a SOLAS Inspection on a 100+ ft Sailing Rig that had a
complete Radio Suite installed. It had a Top Hat offset mounted at the
top of the Mainmast forward, for 500Khz, and a loaded whip offset aft
for MF. Both were feed by seperate Phos/Bronze feeds fron the Radio
Shack which was directly under the mainmast. HF antennas were just
straight wires running down like halyards from the spreader at 50 Ft.
on the mainmast. Vhf was a pair of Morad 156HD's side mounted on each
side of the Crowsnest, just under the LF and MF antennas at 80ft, and
1/2" heliax running down a milled grove in the mainmast. The operator
was an Old Seadog, who retired from Tramper Service on the China Run for
American Presidents Lines, and he used to work his buddies every day on
Cw, voice, and tty, and had the Logbooks to prove it. The inspection
went off without a hitch, and I was very inpressed with the installation
that this Old Boy had done on a replica vessel.

Bruce in alaska

--
Bruce (semiretired powderman & exFCC Field Inspector for Southeastern
Alaska)
add a 2 before @
Bruce Gordon * Debora Gordon R.N. Bruce's Trading Post
P.O. Box EXI Excursion Inlet South
Juneau, Alaska 99850 Excursion Inlet, Alaska 99850
www.btpost.net www.99850.net

Bruce,

An issue of ME from summer before last pretty much debunked the
idea of building extensive groundplanes into the hulls of boats. Gordon
West and a fella that was a retired Navy guy in charge of inspecting
ships for 100 sq-ft counterpoise compliance did some tests. Four
systems were tried using a modified coax switch to switch the
counterpoise between them. The systems we

1) Extensive mesh glassed into the hull of a brand new Swan.
2) Copper foil hung over the side touching the water.
3) Copper foil trailing 100' brhind the boat.
4) Copper foil wrapped around a through-hull secured with a hose clamp.

Results: No real difference!

I use method #4 with great results. Voice, Winlink, and Sailmail all work
great.

Doug, k3qt
s/v Callista


"Bruce Gordon" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"Jim Woodward" jameslwoodward at attbi dot com wrote:

I hoped you'd have some thoughts here, Bruce, because you've always made
a
lot of sense in this general area.

For Fintry, for use primarily for SailMail and talking to Herb
Hilgenberg,
would you use a whip or a wire? While we could shout for help on 2182
and
everything else available, little else will happen below 4mhz.

Wire would be between jackstaff and masthead, about 48' total. see
http://www.mvfintry.com/pix/felev800.png for a profile drawing, although
the
jackstaff doesn't show. If this is your choice, where would you put the
insulators? The tuner would presumably go at the base of the mast.

For a whip, I've been looking at the Comrod AT100, which is easy to get
in
the UK. http://www.comrod.com/v2/Marine/pages/mar_1.asp

Fintry is steel, with an aluminum wheelhouse, so grounding is easy.


Thanks,


--
Jim Woodward
www.mvFintry.com

Jim,


If it was me, and I am by no means a "Sailer", but just an "Old Fud"
with 35 years in the Marine Electronics field, and I wanted the very best
MF and HF Rf Anrenna System for a wind driven vessel, I would build
the BEST Grouding System possible into the hull. this because a good
ground makes up for a lot in antenna design, and a bad ground can't
support even the absolute best antenna. For an antenna, I would side
mount a 28Ft Straight Morad whip at the top of the mast, with 18"
standoffs, and then connect that to a vertical PhosperBronze wire,
suspended by 6" insulators, straight down the mastline, keeping it at
least 12" away from any of the grounded halyards and stays that hold the
mast up. Then take the antenna from the PhospherBronze to a 6" Ceramic
ThruHouse Insulator with GTO-15, and on the inside another GTO-15
jumper to the antenna tuner. Connect the antenna tuner to my BEST RF
Ground System, with 4" wide copper foil layed against the bulkhead and
fixed in place with a coating of fiberlay resin.

Resaon for a Straight Whip over a Loaded Whip? (Morad makes both kinds)
No funny impedance bump at the loading coil frequency, for the autotuner
to figure out. Autotuners firmware really don't do well when faced with
complex impedances coming from the antenna, and they absolutly will not
tune 1/2 wave frequency of the antenna system. So pick a antenna system
design that puts the 1/2 wavelength point in a section of the band you
never want to transmit on. Back before autotuners, when all Marine Radios
were channelized and fixed tuned, a loaded whip was very nice to use, as
it provided a much better way to get a lower impedance at 2.0 Mhz and
one could be sure that the tuner wasn't tuned to a "Kinky" or False
node on the antenna, but with auto tuners this is left to the firmware,
and you can only put so much code in the tuner to account for stange and
"Kinky" antennas.

The above antenna system give you 28 Ft of whip plus 48 FT of mast plus
a few ft of GTO say 3, for a total of around 80 Ft vertical. Now that
would be just about 3.0 Mhz for a 1/4 wave and long enough to very good
at 2182.0 Khz and easily within the tuning range for most autotuners at
2.0Mhz. It also puts the 1/2 wavelength around 6.1 Mhz which is a good
place for a marine and Ham dual use antenna system to be.

Now most "Sailers" will have some problems with the above for a variety
of reasons, but I always like to say, "Do you want it to work, or do you
want it to look good, and, or, be out of the way and not a hazard to
ussuspecting guests who should never leave the cabin in the first place."
This is the Age Old Question. On BIG Ships the antenna systems for LF,
MF, and HF are always on the top of the Wheelhouse or on the next deck
aft. They are there for a reason. To keep them away from the crew
running around on deck. On a wind powered craft this just isn't possible
so the next best thing is to keep the people relativly away from the
antenna, and if they do get burned well, "That's a Sailer's Life".

I once did a SOLAS Inspection on a 100+ ft Sailing Rig that had a
complete Radio Suite installed. It had a Top Hat offset mounted at the
top of the Mainmast forward, for 500Khz, and a loaded whip offset aft
for MF. Both were feed by seperate Phos/Bronze feeds fron the Radio
Shack which was directly under the mainmast. HF antennas were just
straight wires running down like halyards from the spreader at 50 Ft.
on the mainmast. Vhf was a pair of Morad 156HD's side mounted on each
side of the Crowsnest, just under the LF and MF antennas at 80ft, and
1/2" heliax running down a milled grove in the mainmast. The operator
was an Old Seadog, who retired from Tramper Service on the China Run for
American Presidents Lines, and he used to work his buddies every day on
Cw, voice, and tty, and had the Logbooks to prove it. The inspection
went off without a hitch, and I was very inpressed with the installation
that this Old Boy had done on a replica vessel.

Bruce in alaska

--
Bruce (semiretired powderman & exFCC Field Inspector for Southeastern
Alaska)
add a 2 before @
Bruce Gordon * Debora Gordon R.N. Bruce's Trading Post
P.O. Box EXI Excursion Inlet South
Juneau, Alaska 99850 Excursion Inlet, Alaska 99850
www.btpost.net www.99850.net

In article ,
"Doug Dotson" wrote:

An issue of ME from summer before last pretty much debunked the
idea of building extensive groundplanes into the hulls of boats. Gordon
West and a fella that was a retired Navy guy in charge of inspecting
ships for 100 sq-ft counterpoise compliance did some tests. Four
systems were tried using a modified coax switch to switch the
counterpoise between them. The systems we

1) Extensive mesh glassed into the hull of a brand new Swan.
2) Copper foil hung over the side touching the water.
3) Copper foil trailing 100' brhind the boat.
4) Copper foil wrapped around a through-hull secured with a hose clamp.

Results: No real difference!

I haven't seen any published data like the above, anywhere. Can you
provide a URL or reference for the above? I find that "some retired Navy
guy" to be a bit to much in the "hearsay" catagory, and I haven't paid
any attention to Gordy in years. I have spent 35 years designing,
installing, and Inspecting, LF, MF and HF Radio Systems on Vessels
ranging from 16 ft, to 600 ft, and Coast Stations in the Maritime Mobile
Radio Service throughout the North Pacific Coasts. My opinions are my
own, and are subject to my own experiences over the years. They are
shared freely, when asked for, usually. Others may, and do, hold
different opinions, that may, or may not, be mutually exclusive.

Like I stated previously, "If it were ME"

Bruce in alaska

--
Bruce (semiretired powderman & exFCC Field Inspector for Southeastern Alaska)
add a 2 before @
Bruce Gordon * Debora Gordon R.N. Bruce's Trading Post
P.O. Box EXI Excursion Inlet South
Juneau, Alaska 99850 Excursion Inlet, Alaska 99850
www.btpost.net www.99850.net

In article ,
"Jim Woodward" jameslwoodward at attbi dot com wrote:

Thanks very much for the comprehensive answer. Fintry isn't a sailboat (see
http://www.mvfintry.com/pix/felev800.png ) but she does have a mast and
already has the insulator in the wheelhouse top. The 48' is the distance
between the bow and the masthead -- the masthead is about 15' above the
wheelhouse top. And the ground is easy, as the boat is steel.

Looks like your "In the Groove" Steel Hull big Plus. Straight 28' whip
sidemounted on mast, plus 15' wire = 43' of wire. That makes this 1/4
wavelength at 5.6Mhz and 1/2 wavelength at 11.someting Mhz. Again this
is a good place for 1/2 wave point for an autotuner. The antenna is a
bit short for good MF Operations, but almost ideal for 4 meg Marineband
when working against a steel hull. If you get any shorter, the voltage
nodes in the autotuner, will be pushed passed the breakdown voltage of
the tuner capacitors and relay contacts that they work on, which will
cause PCB breakdown and burnt relay points when tuning at anything over
50 watts. This has always been the weak point in autotuner design since
the original Motorola Micomm HF systems of the late 70's and early 80's.
The design criteria just doesn't make for good service if the antennas
are too short, the frequency is too low, and the power is too high.
SEA tried all kinds of different ideas to correct this, including but
not limited to:
1. Double the number of relay points per step for that part of the
capacitor range.
2. Double the number of capacitor steps, in that tuning range.
3. Both of the above
4. Diddling the firmware and changing the Phase Detection circuits
for better detection in this range.
In the end, it was just cheaper, and simpler, to tell the customers and
installers to put more wire on the antenna, or not use it below 1/4
wavelength plus 50% We used to have a lot of traffic on 2003Khz,
2006Khz and 2009Khz, and you just got to have more wire to make that
work well.


Bruce in alaska
--
add a 2 before @