John H. wrote:
With the new Key West, I'm getting a bimini. The wife didn't think the
t-top would give enough sun protection.

In one of the shots of your boat, Harry, it appeared that you have the 8'
antenna folded down, although it could have been a 5'er I guess. In any
case, what do you have, and does it interfere with the bimini?

Anyone - Is the performance of the 5' antenna seriously below that of the
8'er?


I haven't noticed any difference on the Bay with my five-footer. (I was
going to go with an eight-footer, but decided I wanted one that would
fit under the bimini). Only used it a couple of times, but "raised"
other boats maybe 10 miles away, and of course, no problems hearing or
raising the CG with its high land towers.

HK wrote:
John H. wrote:
With the new Key West, I'm getting a bimini. The wife didn't think the
t-top would give enough sun protection.

In one of the shots of your boat, Harry, it appeared that you have the 8'
antenna folded down, although it could have been a 5'er I guess. In any
case, what do you have, and does it interfere with the bimini?

Anyone - Is the performance of the 5' antenna seriously below that of the
8'er?


I haven't noticed any difference on the Bay with my five-footer. (I was
going to go with an eight-footer, but decided I wanted one that would
fit under the bimini). Only used it a couple of times, but "raised"
other boats maybe 10 miles away, and of course, no problems hearing or
raising the CG with its high land towers.


Whoops...my antenna is a 3' unit, not a five-foot unit. It was
positioned to just clear the bimini. Works fine. I lower it when I put
the cover on the boat.

On Tue, 25 Sep 2007 08:00:11 -0400, HK wrote:

HK wrote:
John H. wrote:
With the new Key West, I'm getting a bimini. The wife didn't think the
t-top would give enough sun protection.

In one of the shots of your boat, Harry, it appeared that you have the 8'
antenna folded down, although it could have been a 5'er I guess. In any
case, what do you have, and does it interfere with the bimini?

Anyone - Is the performance of the 5' antenna seriously below that of the
8'er?


I haven't noticed any difference on the Bay with my five-footer. (I was
going to go with an eight-footer, but decided I wanted one that would
fit under the bimini). Only used it a couple of times, but "raised"
other boats maybe 10 miles away, and of course, no problems hearing or
raising the CG with its high land towers.


Whoops...my antenna is a 3' unit, not a five-foot unit. It was
positioned to just clear the bimini. Works fine. I lower it when I put
the cover on the boat.

The three footer sounds even better. Post a pic when you get a chance.

John H. wrote:
On Tue, 25 Sep 2007 08:00:11 -0400, HK wrote:

HK wrote:
John H. wrote:
With the new Key West, I'm getting a bimini. The wife didn't think the
t-top would give enough sun protection.

In one of the shots of your boat, Harry, it appeared that you have the 8'
antenna folded down, although it could have been a 5'er I guess. In any
case, what do you have, and does it interfere with the bimini?

Anyone - Is the performance of the 5' antenna seriously below that of the
8'er?

I haven't noticed any difference on the Bay with my five-footer. (I was
going to go with an eight-footer, but decided I wanted one that would
fit under the bimini). Only used it a couple of times, but "raised"
other boats maybe 10 miles away, and of course, no problems hearing or
raising the CG with its high land towers.

Whoops...my antenna is a 3' unit, not a five-foot unit. It was
positioned to just clear the bimini. Works fine. I lower it when I put
the cover on the boat.

The three footer sounds even better. Post a pic when you get a chance.


Whoops. Could have done that this am, since I just towed the boat back
from Cobb Island. Saw a Key West dealer near there, stopped in to see
what all the fuss was about. This is the dealer in Maryland on Route 301
about two miles north of the Potomac River bridge.

John H. wrote in
:

Anyone - Is the performance of the 5' antenna seriously below that of the
8'er?



None whatsoever. I got to the horizon on a Metz Manta 6 halfwave at butt
level in a Sea Rayder jetboat all the time.

VHF only goes to the horizon, line of sight. To get further, you must
extend the horizon with ALTITUDE. 5' to 8' means nothing.

Screw a bunch of sun-destroyed fiberglass rods. The Metz is guaranteed for
life unless you lose the whip out of it. All the USCGs boats use the Metz,
a testimonial to its rugged construction. Completely self-contained. No
ground plane required. It'll work the horizon holding it in your hand.
http://www.metzcommunication.com/manta6.htm
Great company, too.

This guy has it on sale:
http://www.northeastmarineelectronics.com/index.asp?
PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=2984
$34! That's half price!


Larry
--
Search youtube for "Depleted Uranium"
The ultimate dirty bomb......

On Sep 25, 10:51 am, Larry wrote:
John H. wrote :

Anyone - Is the performance of the 5' antenna seriously below that of the
8'er?

None whatsoever. I got to the horizon on a Metz Manta 6 halfwave at butt
level in a Sea Rayder jetboat all the time.

VHF only goes to the horizon, line of sight. To get further, you must
extend the horizon with ALTITUDE. 5' to 8' means nothing.

Screw a bunch of sun-destroyed fiberglass rods. The Metz is guaranteed for
life unless you lose the whip out of it. All the USCGs boats use the Metz,
a testimonial to its rugged construction. Completely self-contained. No
ground plane required. It'll work the horizon holding it in your hand.http://www.metzcommunication.com/manta6.htm
Great company, too.

This guy has it on sale:http://www.northeastmarineelectronics.com/index.asp?
PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=2984
$34! That's half price!

Larry
--
Search youtube for "Depleted Uranium"
The ultimate dirty bomb......

If distance goes as square root of the height, a 3' antenna mounted on
the same mount as the 8' antenna will reduce my distance by only about
40%.

I may be wrong about this but I think the shorter antennaes are less
"gain". This means they send less power in a horizontal plane.
Sailboats use low gain antennaes because they heel but generally have
them up very high.

Bottom line, I suspect the real answer is that the 3' antenna probably
loses more than 50% of the range due to "gain" and distance to
horizon.

My options (with bimini):

1. Mount the 8' antenna on the side "gunnel" where it would interfere
with casting AND be about 2' lower, effectively being the same as a 6'
antenna (except for gain) AND requiring more coax.
2. Mount the 8' antenna on the heavy stainless bimini tube support
getting back 1' of height.
3. Replace the 8' antenna with a 3' antenna but carry the 8' one for
use in an emergency.

On Tue, 25 Sep 2007 08:32:14 -0700, Frogwatch
wrote:


If distance goes as square root of the height, a 3' antenna mounted on
the same mount as the 8' antenna will reduce my distance by only about
40%.

I may be wrong about this but I think the shorter antennaes are less
"gain". This means they send less power in a horizontal plane.
Sailboats use low gain antennaes because they heel but generally have
them up very high.

Hmmm - it's a bit more complicated that that.

The long/short of it is that antenna gain is based on the hallowed
theoritical half-wave dipole in free space - eerything is compared to
that.

It really doesn't matter if it's horizontal or vertical.

Bottom line, I suspect the real answer is that the 3' antenna probably
loses more than 50% of the range due to "gain" and distance to
horizon.

Not really. Of course it depends on the rating of the antenna in
terms of power, but a 3' antenna should be as capable of handling 25
watts as an 8' antenna.

Gain is a tricky term to use. The antenna, at it's designed frequency
will provide "gain" of X dB over space at a 1:1 SWR (Standing Wave
Ratio). So if you have 9 dB of "gain" at 1:1 that doesn't mean that
you have tripled your Effective Radiated Power - more like you have
increased the ERP by 40% or thereabouts for reasons beyond the point
of this discussion.

Where the loss comes in is away from the center frequency as the SWR
rises. At 1:1 you are getting the power efficiently transmitted. The
further you move up and/or down the frequency range, the SWR rises
which introduces loss. That loss, in dB, is subtracted from the
"gain" resulting in decreased ERP.

There are also other factors to consider such as ground system,
height, type of antenna, ability to retune, etc.

Properly installed, there is no honest advantage to a 8' antenna over
a 3' antenna for small boats.

For larger boats, that's a whole different ball of wax. :)

Short Wave Sportfishing wrote:
On Tue, 25 Sep 2007 08:32:14 -0700, Frogwatch
wrote:


If distance goes as square root of the height, a 3' antenna mounted on
the same mount as the 8' antenna will reduce my distance by only about
40%.

I may be wrong about this but I think the shorter antennaes are less
"gain". This means they send less power in a horizontal plane.
Sailboats use low gain antennaes because they heel but generally have
them up very high.

Hmmm - it's a bit more complicated that that.

The long/short of it is that antenna gain is based on the hallowed
theoritical half-wave dipole in free space - eerything is compared to
that.

It really doesn't matter if it's horizontal or vertical.

Bottom line, I suspect the real answer is that the 3' antenna probably
loses more than 50% of the range due to "gain" and distance to
horizon.

Not really. Of course it depends on the rating of the antenna in
terms of power, but a 3' antenna should be as capable of handling 25
watts as an 8' antenna.

Gain is a tricky term to use. The antenna, at it's designed frequency
will provide "gain" of X dB over space at a 1:1 SWR (Standing Wave
Ratio). So if you have 9 dB of "gain" at 1:1 that doesn't mean that
you have tripled your Effective Radiated Power - more like you have
increased the ERP by 40% or thereabouts for reasons beyond the point
of this discussion.

Where the loss comes in is away from the center frequency as the SWR
rises. At 1:1 you are getting the power efficiently transmitted. The
further you move up and/or down the frequency range, the SWR rises
which introduces loss. That loss, in dB, is subtracted from the
"gain" resulting in decreased ERP.

There are also other factors to consider such as ground system,
height, type of antenna, ability to retune, etc.

Properly installed, there is no honest advantage to a 8' antenna over
a 3' antenna for small boats.

For larger boats, that's a whole different ball of wax. :)


Thank goodness the alternator on my trusty Yamaha puts out 20 GJ of
juice for my VHF radio and towed array barge.

Short Wave Sportfishing wrote in
:

Properly installed, there is no honest advantage to a 8' antenna over
a 3' antenna for small boats.

For larger boats, that's a whole different ball of wax. :)



It's not on larger boats, either. At 55' atop the mainmast of an Amel
Sharki 40 ketch, the Metz easily outperforms the 8' monsters, which must
be mounted lower.

There is a problem with these "High Gain" antennas that's not
addressed....BOATS ROLL AND PITCH.

The horizontal radiation pattern of a 1/2 wave whip, like the end-fed
Metz, looks just like a donut that has no hole with the whip sticking up
where the hole should be. Its "gain" over the isotropic source is 3 db
because of this donut. The isotropic source's radiation pattern is a
sphere. If you took that sphere and pushed the north and south poles of
it to the center, the sides bulge out twice as wide....the 3db measured
at the equator, for you cartographers in the audience. The equator is
fatter.

Now, if we took that Metz radiation balloon, the donut, and put it
between two plates in a vice, when we squeezed the vice, the balloon
between the plates would be squeezed even more and its equator would
bulge out even more as we flattened it so the plates were only an inch
apart. (Our balloon can take any pressure.) This is what the radiation
pattern looks like for the 8-9 db fiberglass colinear "whip", which is
actually a phased array of 1/2 wave dipoles inside a fiberglass tube to
hold them in place. 8' antennas have two dipoles spaced 1/2 wavelength
apart to create this donut that looks like you stepped on it and
flattened it.

Now, this gain IS real gain AT THE EQUATOR when either whip is held
pointing at zenith, straight up and down. Too bad your boat NEVER points
it there, only in passing through it. The pattern is ALWAYS
perpendicular to the plane of the whip passing through the middle of it.

So,



\ Tip of whip
\
\
\
X Boat heeled this way
\
\
\
\
Boat ^-pattern edge heeled to right

God that's awful but its the best I can think of. AS you can see, the
donut has tipped with the whip as the boat rolls. The pattern rolls,
too! All the stations off to starboard or port DON'T see the signal
caused by the EDGE of the donut. They see something MUCH less. How much
less is determined by the tilt of the donut and how squished out it is.
If it's squished hard, like the 8' whip (compared to the Metz' fat
donut), the part of the pattern pointing at the receiving antenna afar is
much less thick than the fat Metz donut.

The effect of rolling and pitching at the receiver you're trying to
impress is that the Metz antenna's signal at that far-off receiver runs a
course from our reference signal, for this explanation, down to 60% of
reference signal. The big whip's signal, on the other hand, being
flatter produces about 20% more signal when the antenna is vertical, but
the dip in signal as the boat rolls is down 80% or more because its donut
is so squished. Very little signal points to the receiver when the donut
is pitched over like this.

That's what the REAL difference between them is, at sea, in the real
world. If your VHF has an S-meter on it, watch it in rolling seas and
you can see the other guy's rolling and pitching making it roll up and
down as his donut's peak and minimum pass by you. The Metz, or any half-
wave with the fat donut, has lots less pitch/roll fading and better comms
when it really counts....precisely why the CG uses it on THEIR pitching
and rolling craft in heavy weather.

Besides, I've submarined the Metz on the jetboat a few times when the bow
became a shovel.....and it survived what would rip the fiberglass whip
right off, probably in splinters....(c;


Larry
--
Search youtube for "Depleted Uranium"
The ultimate dirty bomb......

On Tue, 25 Sep 2007 18:37:27 +0000, Larry wrote:

It's not on larger boats, either. At 55' atop the mainmast of an Amel
Sharki 40 ketch, the Metz easily outperforms the 8' monsters, which must
be mounted lower.

What - you work for them or something?

Metz antennas are crap - always have been, always will be.

Junk.