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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
--
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