"Gordon Wedman" wrote:

The other day I was wandering around one of our marinas trying to steal
ideas from other boats and I came across an aluminum pilot-house sloop that
may have come over from Europe. I noticed that the SSB coax was held away
from the backstay turnbuckle and wire by ~1 inch plastic spacers. I've
never seen this before and the previous owner didn't do it on my boat. I've
been thinking of upgrading the ancient SSB system on my boat and was
wondering if these standoffs were something recommended.
Anyone know about these? Thanks
Gord

Standoffs are highly recommended to eliminate coupling/signal loss between the
leadin and the backstay below the insulators. I made mine by running plastic
wire ties through shrink wrap tubing-a loop around the backstay, through the
tubing, a loop around the wire. About 2" long is good. Not coax at this point,
but High Voltage wire, BTW. Easy to do, and does help performance.