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From: Rick Morel (no email)
Date: Sat Jan 05 2002 - 09:24:40 EST
At 08:45 AM 1/4/2002 -0500, "Marce Schulz" <> wrote:
>We just took our final ham tests -- Jack for general, me for extra -- and
>we're starting to look around for a radio. We're still under construction,
>so we have a little time to shop around, but can all you hams out there tell
>us what you've got and why? We plan on doing the packet airmail thing, which
>is why we got the licenses.
>...
Congrats!!!
Here's what we use.
Kenwood TS-570G with the "mod" to work on marine SSB. We've (not the royal
we, Judy and I) always liked the Kenwoods to the point of never thinking of
anything else. I'm not saying they're the best, but have been the best for us.
PTC-IIe TNC. Now this is another matter. I will make the unequivocal, nobody
will ever change my mind statement that this is the best. It's so far ahead
of ALL the others that it's in a totally different race. We tried another at
first and have had the opportunity to sample others that friends have. Yeah,
they all mostly work, but the sail folks can slit their sails down the
middle, top to bottom and they'll work; the power guys can pull a few
sparkplugs or injectors and they'll still work. It's waaaay too expensive
and that really PO's me, but I suppose if you convert the cost to Boat
Dollars, it's a pretty good deal.
MFJ manual antenna tuner. Only because I already had it. The Kenwood has a
built-in auto tuner that works up to 3:1 VSWR so the MFJ just has to be
close. On the want list is an auto tuner. Way down on the want list.
Nobody has mentioned the antenna. Maybe because antenna discusions seem to
be number 2 behind gun discussions :-) At any rate, the following is what
worked for us.
"Final Step" is a Coronado 35 with a big cast iron keel. Both masts and all
the standing rigging is grounded to the keel. The main backstay splits at a
jackpole from the mizzen, about halfway up the mizzen. I lifted the ground
from one side and made it my feed point. All the rigging becomes a shunt-fed
antenna. It just worked out that it's about 2:1 on 20-meters, so the antenna
tuner is bypassed for this band. Close enough as well on 15-meters.
Shunt-fed antennas seem to work pretty well - an AM broadcast station I was
chief at had one and I was really surprised at the measured field strengths.
In our case, it's sort of a shunt-fed conical, giving a bit of broadband
effect. It also seems to have negated the ketch directional effect.
We did spend a lot of time experimenting and trying longwires, slopers, etc.
Nothing else came close.
A friend with a sloop did basically the same thing by connecting a couple
lengths of braid to the spreaders and each upper shroud, and grounding
everything but the feed shroud.
There is the objection voiced by some of having all those "livewires" on
deck. The average 100W is not going to do much, if anything. Except for
possibly the feed point, impedances are very low as are voltages. Of course
the simple solution is don't lick the rigging while transmitting.
Rick Morel
--------------------
S/V Final Step
Port of Iberia, LA
http://www.morelr.com/coronado/
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