I use insulators in my backstay and an SGC auto-tuner. So far it has matched every frequency I have tried it on, which would be every ham and marine band between 1.8 and 30 MHz. This definitely includes 40 meters. The only tricky area seems to be 10 meters. I can get a better tune some days by tuning at 26 MHz and locking the tuner and then going to 10 meters. Not sure exactly why?? I haven't tried it myself, but I have heard of people only using the bottom insulator on the backstay and letting the tuner load the whole rig with ground strap run the tuner to the base of the mast. Anyway, for the low voltage issue, you can try this: http://www.mfjenterprises.com/Product.php?productid=MFJ-4416B You can see my TS-440 here: http://www.dellabarba.com/sailing/rh1.jpg and here http://www.dellabarba.com/sailing/isabelchart.jpg Joe Della Barba Coquina C&C 35 MK I N3HGB
_____ From: CnC-List [mailto:cnc-list-boun...@cnc-list.com] On Behalf Of Colomba Sent: Friday, January 11, 2013 6:49 PM To: cnc-list@cnc-list.com Subject: Re: Stus-List HAM radio on board Hi Fred of cause, basic idea is to use only an auto-tuner ... but, if you look at the possibilities, on 7 MHZ ( 40m band) there will be no chance for any auto-tuner to match the aft stay (on the C&C 34 with 12.7m isolated aft stay length, other length of cause may be possible). To illustrate the problem i.e. 80m band (3,5-3,8 Mhz) ... aft stay isolated, far field pattern: max. -0.7 dBi, losses in the antenna tuner app. 50%, 30° vertical angle. Aft stay connected to the whole rigging the far field: max 3.93 dBi; losses in the antenna tuner 2%, with a vertical angle of 60°, which means nearly an optimum for long distance connections. Main problem for HF connections on a sailing boat is, during sailing I have only app. 12.5V meaning something about 60W output, but 15A. Ok, I can use an Amplifier to increase output, say to 300 W or something, no problem, but in this case I would use app. 60A or something like that. For sailing conditions inacceptable. Result in my point of view is, to optimize the antenna. If I`m able to send out really with 60 W and have only 2% losses, than everything is fine. With 100W output I had contact to stations up to 3000 sm away, on sea, with salt water enviroment 60W should doing same due to much better ground conditions. For the relay in the circurit, no, it`s not really a big thing. Looking to what`s going on on this point, only 0.6V and 2A (on 80m band with 100W, the others I have to check, but I do not expect really high voltage or current), so a 12 V rellay with 16A should do this job easily. best regards Peter Am 11.01.2013 23:19, schrieb Frederick G Street: Peter -- on this side of the pond, it's common to use a completely-isolated backstay for the antenna. I'd be concerned about getting RF burns if you don't isolate at the top (using the mast and the rest of the stays/shrouds as antennas); and depending on your transmit power, you'd need quite a large relay to switch the mast/rigging in or out of the circuit anyway. Are you using an antenna tuner between the radio and the antenna? Most SSB installations I'm familiar with use an auto-tuner along with the fully-isolated backstay. See if this helps: http://www.yachtcom.info/backstay/index.html Fred Street -- Minneapolis S/V Oceanis (1979 C&C Landfall 38) -- on the hard in Bayfield, WI :^( On Jan 11, 2013, at 4:08 PM, Colomba <colo...@peter-gottwald.de> wrote: Good day last October I made my ham radio licence. Whatever, hard stuff. Of cause my main idea is to bring the ham radio onto Colomba (C&C34) and I`m wondering ho to install the antenna. Perhaps someone had same idea and some solutions. In the moment I`m modelling the boat incl. rigging with 4nec2 and the results are interesting ... and a little bit confusing. Up to now I made two setups of antennas, one separate on the stern with max 8m long wire in a glasfibre tube, app. 10° showing aft from the vertical. I`m not very pleased to have such antenna, much to complicated for mooring etc. Also it seems that this antenna will not work without a huge ammount of losses even if matched by an antenna tuner. The other possibility is to use the aft stay. It`s isolated, so in general no problem. But, it`s funny ... isolated no chance to match it on 40m band, 80m is possible but not really good. 20,15 and 10m are working. Than I`ve tried to use the aft stay without an isolation in the top. Result was interesting. 80m working good, 40m perfect, 20 and 15m do not work, 10m excellent. That the 10m is working coupled to the whole rigg is realy surprising me. My idea is now to place a relais in the top to have a circurit with the rigg or to isolate the aft stay. Of cause, under all circumstances I have to match the antenna with an automatic tuner, but I want to reduce losses in the tuner as much as possible. Perhaps someone has his/her own experience and can give me some advices. If someone is interesting in the nec file, please give me a note. _______________________________________________ This List is provided by the C&C Photo Album http://www.cncphotoalbum.com CnC-List@cnc-list.com
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