On Tue, 25 Sep 2007 11:50:39 -0400, Gene Kearns
wrote:

On Tue, 25 Sep 2007 07:01:13 -0500, John H. penned the following well
considered thoughts to the readers of rec.boats:

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?

By formula, 3' vs. 8' is about 2.74 miles difference in LoS..... which
is fairly meaningless..... since we don't know the altitude of the
other antenna. For safety, I rely on the height of the local 170+ foot
USCG antenna, instead of the height of my own......

Receiver sensitivity is probably way more important than +-5' of
antenna at the boat end.... unless you are trying to DSC some guy near
the horizon....

..... sooooo.....
save that money on the antenna and spend it on the IC-M604...

$500! Damn! Do I really need that for an 18' boat that will probably never
get out of sight of land?

On Tue, 25 Sep 2007 14:40:51 -0500, John H.
wrote:

On Tue, 25 Sep 2007 11:50:39 -0400, Gene Kearns
wrote:

On Tue, 25 Sep 2007 07:01:13 -0500, John H. penned the following well
considered thoughts to the readers of rec.boats:

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?

By formula, 3' vs. 8' is about 2.74 miles difference in LoS..... which
is fairly meaningless..... since we don't know the altitude of the
other antenna. For safety, I rely on the height of the local 170+ foot
USCG antenna, instead of the height of my own......

Receiver sensitivity is probably way more important than +-5' of
antenna at the boat end.... unless you are trying to DSC some guy near
the horizon....

..... sooooo.....
save that money on the antenna and spend it on the IC-M604...

$500! Damn! Do I really need that for an 18' boat that will probably never
get out of sight of land?

Nah - but then again, I like radios.

Probably the Icom M302 is what you want. Actually, in this price
range, any of the manufacturers, Uniden, Standard Horizon, Oceanus -
hell, even the West Marine brand radio are decent enough to get by.