Hi Chuck,

No you didn't miss the boat but I need to clarify. My intent is to have a
permanent long wire antenna installed without having to "break" the rigging
with insulators. I know I can haul a wire up with a halyard but I want it
permanently available. I think that the most out of the way place to
permanently raise a longwire is along the shroud. I'm not very worried
about rf burn because I can be careful and/or insulate the shroud at the
level that is likely to be touched. I am more concerned about loss of
effective power due to reactive interaction with the grounded shroud.

Any thoughts?


Hello Jerry,

I'm not sure I understand exactly what you want to
do. It seems you want to simply use the shroud as
a support for an insulated wire, which would be
your antenna. This would allow you to avoid a
direct (DC) connection between the antenna wire
and the shroud. I think that if the shroud were
non-conducting, your idea would work well. If the
shroud is metal, which is most likely, then I
believe you will transfer energy to the shroud
which in turn will radiate and provide a means of
producing RF burns.

A better solution might be to slip some rubber or
teflon tubing over the shroud up to a height of
say six feet. You might slit the tubing to allow
attachment without disconnecting the shroud. Then
you could attach your short feed length of wire
from the tuner directly to the shroud and you're
in business. Do the same on the other shroud and
it may even look nice.

If that is not attractive, you could run a length
of nylon or dacron line from someplace on the hull
to the mast (or use a flag halyard) and pull an
insulated wire antenna up to some pre-determined
height that way. You will still get some coupling
into the rigging from any antenna anywhere on the
boat. Usually (but not always) there is little
danger of RF burns. One advantage of this
technique is that you can get the antenna to be a
quarter wave at some desired frequency--an option
not available with the shroud antenna.

Have I missed the boat? Hope that helps.

Chuck