Also read Gordon West's excellent primer on radio gound planes for
boats. It comes packed with the West Marine 2" copper foil gound kit,
which by the way comes in 25' AND 50' lengths. (That may say
something about the length of gound leads right there.) He points out
that the tuner is mounted next to the antenna on the flybridge of
power boats, and at the base of the antenna (backstay) of sailboats.

You don't suppose they are trying to sell ground foil do you? :)

Ask Bruce about ground planes on fly bridges. :)

Regards
Gary


On 22 Nov 2003 04:18:15 -0800, (Mark Reichow)
wrote:

Also read Gordon West's excellent primer on radio gound planes for
boats. It comes packed with the West Marine 2" copper foil gound kit,
which by the way comes in 25' AND 50' lengths. (That may say
something about the length of gound leads right there.) He points out
that the tuner is mounted next to the antenna on the flybridge of
power boats, and at the base of the antenna (backstay) of sailboats.

A valid point but Gordon West also states that with the modern
couplers/tuners, we no longer need to run huge amounts of ground foil
and to link EVERY thru-hull to have a good ground plane. It used to
be that a MINIMUM of 100 sq. ft. of counterpoise was recommended.
He's a ham who writes books and magazine articles offering advice on
the best way to install your HF radio system. I don't think he'd risk
his rep telling you to install an inferior ground plane just to sell
some foil. And I don't think SGC has a monetary interest in telling
us to mount the coupler as close to the base of the antenna as
practical. In any case, I've istalled my system and others this way,
all with great success. Regards, Mark


Gary Schafer wrote in message . ..
You don't suppose they are trying to sell ground foil do you? :)

Ask Bruce about ground planes on fly bridges. :)

Regards
Gary


On 22 Nov 2003 04:18:15 -0800, (Mark Reichow)
wrote:

Also read Gordon West's excellent primer on radio gound planes for
boats. It comes packed with the West Marine 2" copper foil gound kit,
which by the way comes in 25' AND 50' lengths. (That may say
something about the length of gound leads right there.) He points out
that the tuner is mounted next to the antenna on the flybridge of
power boats, and at the base of the antenna (backstay) of sailboats.

Didn't Gordon West recently publish the results of an informal experiment where
his only ground was simply a short wire hung off the boat touching salt water,
(not a long length dragged behind the boat)? As I recall, against all common
wisdom, it worked great. The article called into question the need for big
surface areas of grounding material if in salt water. It implied that simply
grounding to a metallic through hull might do the job. I know we still have the
issues of coupler and antenna location, feedline, etc.

In article ,
(BOEING377) wrote:

Didn't Gordon West recently publish the results of an informal experiment
where
his only ground was simply a short wire hung off the boat touching salt
water,
(not a long length dragged behind the boat)? As I recall, against all common
wisdom, it worked great. The article called into question the need for big
surface areas of grounding material if in salt water. It implied that simply
grounding to a metallic through hull might do the job. I know we still have
the
issues of coupler and antenna location, feedline, etc.

The above Idea of trailing a wire or a direct metalic connection
to the water, has been around since the original radios went on
floating objects. Mostly they aren't used for two reasons. One,
trailing anything behind a powerboat, will in all liklyhood enup in the
wheel and cause BAD THINGS to happen. Oh, you say, "We ALWAYS reel
it in before we, turn, stop, manuver, ect". Yeah Right, and how many
pilots need to replace the trailing wire antenna because they forgot to
reel it in before landing??? Second, any electrical connections to
Sal****er will in all likelyhood cause ELECTROSIS and can serverly damage
expensive equipment on your vessel. Most vessel owners and operators
like to keep ALL their electrical connection DC Isolated from the water
for this reason and building a good RF Ground System that is DC Isolated
isn't all that hard, If you do it when the hull is being built in the
first place.

Bruce in alaska
--
add a 2 before @

I haven't read everything that Gordon West has written. But some of
the stuff, especially the comparisons he makes between systems, leaves
a little to be desired.

If he says "we no longer need huge amounts of ground foil etc. because
of modern tuners", what does that tell you? That is like saying "my
radio puts out a good signal". Compared to what?

Modern tuners don't help the ground situation one bit. They haven't
changed the laws of physics. The only thing a modern tuner does is let
you get away with a poor ground system easier than the old manual
tuners. Much less work involved to get the radio to operate. Not that
it operates any better though.

Just look at the quality of some of the SGC radios. Is it any wonder
their manuals are a little off.

I have seen countless manufacturers with very poor antenna system
installation advice.

Some people have finally realized that a good connection to the sea
water is an excellent ground. Gordon West Being among them.

Now if only people would come to realize the importance of SHORT
ground leads.

Regards
Gary


On 22 Nov 2003 10:15:46 -0800, (Mark Reichow)
wrote:

A valid point but Gordon West also states that with the modern
couplers/tuners, we no longer need to run huge amounts of ground foil
and to link EVERY thru-hull to have a good ground plane. It used to
be that a MINIMUM of 100 sq. ft. of counterpoise was recommended.
He's a ham who writes books and magazine articles offering advice on
the best way to install your HF radio system. I don't think he'd risk
his rep telling you to install an inferior ground plane just to sell
some foil. And I don't think SGC has a monetary interest in telling
us to mount the coupler as close to the base of the antenna as
practical. In any case, I've istalled my system and others this way,
all with great success. Regards, Mark


Gary Schafer wrote in message . ..
You don't suppose they are trying to sell ground foil do you? :)

Ask Bruce about ground planes on fly bridges. :)

Regards
Gary


On 22 Nov 2003 04:18:15 -0800, (Mark Reichow)
wrote:

Also read Gordon West's excellent primer on radio gound planes for
boats. It comes packed with the West Marine 2" copper foil gound kit,
which by the way comes in 25' AND 50' lengths. (That may say
something about the length of gound leads right there.) He points out
that the tuner is mounted next to the antenna on the flybridge of
power boats, and at the base of the antenna (backstay) of sailboats.

In article ,
(Mark Reichow) wrote:

A valid point but Gordon West also states that with the modern
couplers/tuners, we no longer need to run huge amounts of ground foil
and to link EVERY thru-hull to have a good ground plane. It used to
be that a MINIMUM of 100 sq. ft. of counterpoise was recommended.
He's a ham who writes books and magazine articles offering advice on
the best way to install your HF radio system. I don't think he'd risk
his rep telling you to install an inferior ground plane just to sell
some foil. And I don't think SGC has a monetary interest in telling
us to mount the coupler as close to the base of the antenna as
practical. In any case, I've istalled my system and others this way,
all with great success. Regards, Mark


Old Gordie, doesn't have a clue about how the firmware in "Modern
Autotuners", works, and shows his ingnorence in his writing such drivel.
The requirement for a "Solid Low Impeadance RF Ground System" doesn't
change just because you have a fancy Autotuner, instead of a clunky
old Fixed Channel Tuner, of years gone by. The only change is that
you, as a Vessel Owner, can do your own installations instead of hiring
a "Competant Marine Radioman" to do a quality job for you. This allows
you to make all the "Stupid and unintellegent" mistakes that folks with
years of experience made back on their first installation. My first
question was ALWAYS, "Do you want it to WORK, or do you want it to LOOK
GOOD?" SGC couldn't design their way out of a "Wet Paper Bag" and they
didn't do any of the "Original Design Work" on any of the Autotuner
Products. ANY THAT IS A FACT! How do you determine "great suscess"?
Like I have posted before, just making a "Radio Contact" when the band
is wide open doesn't prove anything. A "Wet Noodle" will work when the
band is open. We used to do that by calling KMI from Puget Sound all
the time, and "It don't mean Squat" Make a contact when the band is
noisy and marginal, or in the middle of a Big Storm, when your more
likly to really need to communicate, then maybe you got something.
See in the Non-commecial Maritime Radio World, you actually use the HF
Radio very little and actually make contact even less. In the Commercial
Maritime Radio World, these guys are using that radio 4 or more times a
day, every day, and if they don't get a contact, they move frequency
untill they do make contact. When they had Radio Operators, it was
considerable more contact per ship per day than that. If they had
marginal Antenna Systems and RF Grounds, they are back "Bitching" to the
Istalling Radioman, after the first voyage. Been there, had that happen!

Bruce in alaska
--
add a 2 before @

I don't care what books you read or who wrote them and why they decide
that the rules of physics changed because he is now being paid by what
company.

The Antenna begins at the tuner
The ground (system) begins at the antenna

Do you want the antenna radiating or the ground radiating?

Do you want the antenna as long as possible? (Look at an
antenna-engineering book to get the formula for antennas, hint: one of
the many factors that are DIRECTLY proportional is the length of
antenna (bet not very many of the non-engineer type antenna experts in
here knew that )) LOL just opened up a can of worms.

You want the ground of a vertical type antenna, sloper counts as that
in my book as it is only ¼ wavelength (not really but that's what the
tuner is for, to lie to the transmission line but really it changes
the feed point reactance, anyway I wasn't an English major and anyway
again you want the ground at the tuner to be an effective counterpoise
by coupling into the seawater without radiating any of that rf. Hot
grounds anyone, that's my story and I'm sticking to it



Gordie can write I can't he better stick to writing maybe some
children's books would be better












Bruce in Alaska wrote in message ...
In article ,
(Mark Reichow) wrote:

A valid point but Gordon West also states that with the modern
couplers/tuners, we no longer need to run huge amounts of ground foil
and to link EVERY thru-hull to have a good ground plane. It used to
be that a MINIMUM of 100 sq. ft. of counterpoise was recommended.
He's a ham who writes books and magazine articles offering advice on
the best way to install your HF radio system. I don't think he'd risk
his rep telling you to install an inferior ground plane just to sell
some foil. And I don't think SGC has a monetary interest in telling
us to mount the coupler as close to the base of the antenna as
practical. In any case, I've istalled my system and others this way,
all with great success. Regards, Mark


Old Gordie, doesn't have a clue about how the firmware in "Modern
Autotuners", works, and shows his ingnorence in his writing such drivel.
The requirement for a "Solid Low Impeadance RF Ground System" doesn't
change just because you have a fancy Autotuner, instead of a clunky
old Fixed Channel Tuner, of years gone by. The only change is that
you, as a Vessel Owner, can do your own installations instead of hiring
a "Competant Marine Radioman" to do a quality job for you. This allows
you to make all the "Stupid and unintellegent" mistakes that folks with
years of experience made back on their first installation. My first
question was ALWAYS, "Do you want it to WORK, or do you want it to LOOK
GOOD?" SGC couldn't design their way out of a "Wet Paper Bag" and they
didn't do any of the "Original Design Work" on any of the Autotuner
Products. ANY THAT IS A FACT! How do you determine "great suscess"?
Like I have posted before, just making a "Radio Contact" when the band
is wide open doesn't prove anything. A "Wet Noodle" will work when the
band is open. We used to do that by calling KMI from Puget Sound all
the time, and "It don't mean Squat" Make a contact when the band is
noisy and marginal, or in the middle of a Big Storm, when your more
likly to really need to communicate, then maybe you got something.
See in the Non-commecial Maritime Radio World, you actually use the HF
Radio very little and actually make contact even less. In the Commercial
Maritime Radio World, these guys are using that radio 4 or more times a
day, every day, and if they don't get a contact, they move frequency
untill they do make contact. When they had Radio Operators, it was
considerable more contact per ship per day than that. If they had
marginal Antenna Systems and RF Grounds, they are back "Bitching" to the
Istalling Radioman, after the first voyage. Been there, had that happen!

Bruce in alaska

In article ,
(Gw) wrote:

I don't care what books you read or who wrote them and why they decide
that the rules of physics changed because he is now being paid by what
company.

The Antenna begins at the tuner
The ground (system) begins at the antenna

Do you want the antenna radiating or the ground radiating?

Do you want the antenna as long as possible? (Look at an
antenna-engineering book to get the formula for antennas, hint: one of
the many factors that are DIRECTLY proportional is the length of
antenna (bet not very many of the non-engineer type antenna experts in
here knew that )) LOL just opened up a can of worms.

You want the ground of a vertical type antenna, sloper counts as that
in my book as it is only ¼ wavelength (not really but that's what the
tuner is for, to lie to the transmission line but really it changes
the feed point reactance, anyway I wasn't an English major and anyway
again you want the ground at the tuner to be an effective counterpoise
by coupling into the seawater without radiating any of that rf. Hot
grounds anyone, that's my story and I'm sticking to it



Gordie can write I can't he better stick to writing maybe some
children's books would be better

Yep, I agree with you and Gary on these points.......


Bruce in alaska
--
add a 2 before @

"SGC couldn't design their way out of a "Wet Paper Bag" and they
didn't do any of the "Original Design Work" on any of the Autotuner
Products. ANY THAT IS A FACT!"

Ok, I get it. No need to bust a blood vessel over this. The SGC
radios are known far and wide as being junk. No argument there. The
SGC tuners however, DO have a good rep, no matter who designed them.
(BTW, Honda didn't do the "original design work" on the automobile
either, yet they make a quality product.) But for the sake of your
argument, we'll dismiss SGC as a player in the coupler/tuner market.
Here's ICOM's take on mounting automatic antenna tuners on sail and
power boats. http://www.icomamerica.com/downloads...ook/chptr7.pdf
Have a nice day. Mark