Next time you go to sea, take a hundred foot of plastic-covered wire,
number 14 or bigger, and seal the open end with 4200 to keep the
seawater out. Put something on the end that doesn't float but will
produce some drag to pull on it moving through the water. Hook the
boat end to the ground terminal on your antenna tuner and force the
tuner to retune the antenna as it changes the impedance at the feed
point.

Hell, the Navy uses the trailing wire as an antenna, but they cheat
with the metal hull. I've done some experiments with ham buddies who
tell me going from engine block counterpoise to trailing wire
counterpoise adds 2-3 S-units, especially on bands below 8 Mhz. Works
great, but don't forget to wind it back up before you get to port.

Oh, try to make the drag so it doesn't look like something to eat.
Something ate my beer can and half the wire, one night. I noticed it
was kinda slack the next morning, and when we wound it in to see what
happened, half the wire was missing! I guess you shouldn't use shiny
cans for the drag....(c;



On Sat, 6 Dec 2003 15:36:48 -0500, "Doug Dotson"
wrote:

Good idea.

"Dennis Gibbons" wrote in message
...
Doug
My Nic 35 has internal ballast also. I drilled into the lead and tapped a
bronze rod into it and attached the foil to that. great counterpoise

--
Dennis Gibbons
S/V Dark Lady
CN35-207
email: dennis dash gibbons at worldnet dot att dot net
"Doug Dotson" wrote in message
...
Garland,

Unfortunately on my current boat the keel is internal so it has no
keel bolts. I did have my counterpoise tied to a keel bolt on my
previous boat. Every now and then I have to remove the hose
clamp, clean the seacock and foil and put them back together.
I'm thinking of installing a Dynaplate just for the counterpoise
to make the installation cleaner.

Doug,k3qt
s/v Callista

"Garland Gray II" wrote in message
news:HMpAb.37579$_h.6805@lakeread02...
Doug,
I've just started looking at this newsgroup, and had seen your
mentioning
this in an older thread. Knowing you had a keelboat, I assumed you had
also
tied in to your keel, but since not, maybe that is all I will need to
do.

Before I start, I want to have a clear plan of what/where to add if I
find
I need to.

Thanks for the info.

Garland

"Doug Dotson" wrote in message
...
Garland,

Recent wisdom in this always controvercial topic is to use foil to
connect the tuner/radio to a through-hull. I have mine wrapped
around
a scupper seacock and held with a hose clamp. Works as good as
any installation I have encountered that has extensive foil layed
down
including my previous boat. Try this simple approach first, then if
it
doesn't work well start laying down foil etc. All boats are
different.
What works great on my boat may not work well on yours.
Doug, k3qt
s/v Callista

"Garland Gray II" wrote in message
news:B5nAb.37355$_h.35620@lakeread02...
I'm about to install the SSB ground system in my catamaran. Since
I
don't
have a lead keel, and my water tank is well above the w/l, seems I
might
be
needing to lay down a lot of copper strips in the bilge.
The operators manual suggested that a 3" strip separated 3" from
an
adjacent
3" strip would be equivalent to a 9" strip. Is this the maximum
separation
to achieve this phenomonem? If the strips could be 2 feet apart,
and
still
be effective as a 2+ foot wide strip, that would save a lot of
time
and
materials. Probably too good to be true though. But if it did wow,
maybe
I
could lay strips in both hulls, connected together at each end,
and
have
a
monster ground plane.
Since this probably wouldn't work, what is the most efficient way
to
make
the ground system in a catamaran?














Larry W4CSC

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