counterpoise for an SSB

[Brian and Jen]

Hello

Am interested about how others may have added the SSB counterpoise to a PP40. We really do not want to haul the boat and drill holes in the hull for a dynaplate. We are also are not convinced the simple KISS method is for us. I have read anecdotal reports that claim it is effective but it seems "too good (read "easy") to be true". 

We are now considering copper stripping attached to the large cockpit drain thruhull that resides just starboard and aft of the companionway stairs. The stripping would ultimately reattach back to the tuner which we will mount inside the transom just under and starboard of the insulated backstay. It is proposed that we would be running many strips of this 3-4" wide copper strips along the bottom and sides of the hull under the water line. This would require us to remove the green bonding wire from the thruhull. It also would become a maintenance issue as we must insure it does not repeatedly turn green.

We are curious about what other Passport owners have done for an effective counterpoise to enable effective transmitting very long distances with your SSB? 

[P. Sherwood]

I installed a ground plane (counterpoise) per a Gordon West article I
read. The copper strip runs from the SSB radio installed at the nav
station down to the starboard water tank, where it attaches to one of
the inspection-plate hold-down bolts.

From there it runs down and under the cabin sole to the aft-most little
bilge compartment where the through-hulls and seacocks for the engine
raw water intake and galley salt water intake are, a run of only about 4
or 5 feet. It then attaches to the bronze galley salt water seacock.

The tank itself probably doesn't have quite the surface area square
footage to be a good counterpoise by itself and might even be
superfluous given the copper's connection to the seacock. But the part
from the nav station to the water tank was already installed and in good
shape, so I left it in place. The part from the tank to the seacock was
very easy to install.

The antenna tuner, which is mounted to the inside of the transom just
starboard of the backstay chainplate, is grounded to the rudder cage
with a hefty (#8 or #10) wire.

The setup, which includes an Icom 706 MkIIG radio and AH-4 antenna tuner
-- seems to work fine. People on various marine and ham radio nets have
said my signal is strong and clear. The setup gets around the hassle of
running copper strips all over the place and the undesirability of
having a bronze plate mounted on the exterior below the waterline. It
won't work if you have marelon through-hulls, of course.

According to Gordon West, by attaching to a through-hull you're
essentially using the ocean as the counterpoise. Here's the link:
http://www.kp44.org/ftp/SeawaterGroundingFor_HF_Radios_byGordonWest.pdf

Oh, and it doesn't matter if the copper turns green. The electrons don't
care what color the copper is as they run along its surface. You just
need to maintain a continuous length of copper, wherever it leads, and
have only to clean off the green stuff if you have to solder in a patch
somewhere.

HTH,

Phil (KE7RLW)
s/v Cynosure
stuck in Mazatlan for a while w/ transmission repair
"Oh Br'er Fox, please don't throw me in that briar patch!"

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[John Warren]

We have done similar copper strips on Warren Peace except our copper strip
runs from the tuner, down the hallway of the boat, attached to the main thru
hole and then to two large tanks. In addition we also have a large
dynaplate near the stern of the boat where the tuner is located with copper
foil also running from the dyna plate to the tuner. Every year I also take
the main connections to the tuner and the antenna and coat with silicon
grease. We are currently in the Sea of Cortez and the net controllers
almost always say that we have a very good signal. Most of the net
controllers this time of the year seem to be down in the Manzanillo area or
Bandaras Bay.

[Alcoop]

On my boat when purchased there were copper strips everywhere attached to the engine, steel water tanks and through hulls. I could not verify that I had good transmission before I went to Mexico.  On my old boat I had a Dyna plate but did not want to make holes in the Passport, so I bought a KISS. It makes sense to me as when i did ham at home I had a counterpoise wire on the roof for each meter band and all KISS is a bundle of insulated wires for a large number of frequencies). So far the KISS has worked very well. In La Cruz I could get the local ham net (Picante) and also transmission from the rest of the Bay and down to Acapulco. After crossing back I was getting good copy to the La Cruz net from Cabo and above. I am in La Paz but have not tried it out here. So far I am very happy but have not disposed of the copper band systems which I could use as a back up if I have problems. According to the man who makes the KISS you need to disconnect the band from the tuner when you instal the KISS.
Allen
sv/Krissy

[svladycybil]

I connected my tuner to the closest through hull using copper foil.

Had good communications with Southbound II from Norfolk, VA to the Virgin Islands.

When in down town Norfolk I was next to an Oyster with a "professional installation" who could not reach Southbound II. Once out at sea he was OK.

Dick
S/V Lady Cybil
 

[Jim Melton]

They guy from whom we bought our P40 had laid copper
screen-door/window-type screen over the entire "garage", and atop
both fuel tanks and both water tanks. He then seems to have
semi-bedded the whole thing down with a black goo (that is in no way
"wet", but is somewhat flexible). I infer that it's 5200, but he
never told me what it was.

He said that he always got excellent reception and had "the best
signal in the Caribbean". He did, however, tie it all to a
dynaplate, which we continue to maintain.

I wouldn't haul the boat solely to install a dynaplate, but there are
many dive operators (the kind who wipe the slime off of my hull
before it starts becoming a meadow or a reef) who can safely install
a dynaplate (including drilling the holes without putting salt water
into your boat!) for a pretty low cost.

Hope this helps,
Jim

================
Jim Melton & Barbara Edelberg
"Dream SeQueL"
1982 Passport 40, hull# 18
http://DreamSeQueL.com
"BOAT: Break Out Another Thousand"

[Beller Family]

Tying the copper foil strip into the nearest bronze thru-hull should work fine.  We used the cockpit drain which is the closest.  Reports are that we always have a great signal.  Per Gordon West it's almost as effective as laying tons of copper throughout the boat - and a lot less expense and effort.  We covered the foil between the tuner and almost to the thru-hull with some fiberglass tape and resin to seal it from moisture that invariable gets into the after cockpit lockers and drains to the bilge.

 

Jeff

S/V Journey

From: Jim Melton <Shelt...@xmission.com>
To: Brian and Jen <bnj...@gmail.com>
Cc: Passpor...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Friday, March 22, 2013 12:17 PM
Subject: Re: [Passport] counterpoise for an SSB

http://dreamsequel.com/

"BOAT: Break Out Another Thousand" 

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[Brian and Jen]

thanks everyone! this is all very helpful

[Binari, Steve]

Jeff,

Is your thru hull painted?  I would think it okay for it to be painted since it is an ac ground connection and a dc connection is not required.

 

Also, how did you connect to the case ground of your SSB transceiver?  Did that need to go to a thru hull or external ground plate?

 

Thanks,

 

Steve

s/v Albireo

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[Beller Family]

Steve,

 

My thru hulls are painted on the outside.  As you noted it shouldn't matter.  And the inside of the thru hull which also contacts the seawater probably isn't painted. 

 

The case of the SSB transceiver is grounded to my keel and/or engine.  The main purpose of the case ground is to protect the operator from accidental shock in the case of a component leak or high SWR (reflected RF coming back down the coax if tuner isn't working right).  That ground can be either the same copper foil or regular copper grounding braid (which is a little easier to work with). 

 

Let me know when you get it all hooked up and maybe we can talk to test it out.

 

Jeff

[ChinaDoll]

You should really read this: http://www.sailmail.com/grounds.htm first before going with a t-hull as your counter-poise. Note that most Passports and just about all Hallberg-Rassy (as mentioned in the attached article) have bonding systems for t-hulls etc. RF counter-poise to a t-hull may not be what you want. (In fact, after reading the entire article, you may no longer want a bonded hull.) If your Passport has a bonded hull, like mine, it's important to make sure the 'entire' bonding is intact. [But that's a whole-another --Texas term supplied for Texans like John Warren, pronounced as 'holenother' 8-)...-- topic!]

What's interesting in the article is the use of the stanchions --and possibly on the Passports, the mild steel hull-to-deck joint-- by doing a tie-in between your RF Ground and the rail. But what is understated in the listed doc is how with HR Yachts' installation-at-the-factory HF radios, the inside-hull RF flat copper ground plane is ran from the tuner (which is located as close as possible to the backstay --when using that as the antenna) back to the radio (or the 'metal' remote black box for radios like the Icom 810). Besides many HR Yachts having the Icom 710 (that I have sailed), it seems those boats (newer ones) have had the best HF 'kick' of any boat that I have been aboard. Also on the HR Yachts, this RF ground plane --as far as I could see-- didn't touch any of the bonding systems' ground nor did it touch the boats DC or AC ground.

On our boat, with a bonded hull, the original RF counter-poise was done in two ways. 1. a flat copper foil was ran just around 1/2 of the boats stern, and 2. a black rubber insulation coated 'web' (looks like a four 'X' pattern mesh of copper strands) was ran from a connection to the copper foil (which was ran in the semi-circle around the boats stern, above the waterline), up to the nearest stanchion base, which is the aft pulpit rail. Note that this pulpit rail base is in contact with the mild steel hull-to-deck joint that runs around the entire boat, just below the teak bulwarks.

The addition I have done to the original system has been to make a nice sealed run of the thick copper foil from two small Dayna Plates (one on each side of the hull above the rudder), in and along the boat's hull underneath the fuel tanks, along the aft inside passageway of the center stateroom, terminating at the remote ('metal' black box --not the display unit with the microphone) of the Icom 810. I am not sure if any of the additions made any improvements in the counter-poise, but the system is working well. I wished I experimented more with the original setup, but I did not get that chance before adding the Dyna Plates to the existing 1/2-stern run of copper foil. The issue I have with transmitting --consistent good transmissions-- is my GT cable attachment to the backstay. I have had to replace the end and connection at least once a year, but I will now be getting this device that will correctly (sealed) connect the GT cable to the backstay. (I did not know this device existed until a few days ago when I noticed the device on a neighbor's boat...).

Another interesting item I noted in the article is the VHF antenna isolating 'barrel'; I had accidentally removed that item after I rewired the mast as I had thought that in the previous work on the VHF, the coax wire had simply ran to short, so someone put in that 'barrel' just to get an inch or two more in the coax! Good thing I didn't throw that 'barrel' thingy away! Now I will have to go back into the radio cabinet and put the isolator back in the antenna circuit. But first, I will have to find where I 'stored' that 'barrel' thingy over 12 years ago!

-Rob.

Ps. We are hoping to Sail next week for Providencia, Caymans, Dry Tortugas, and then to the Florida Keys, from Bocas del Toro...

[Beller Family]

Hi Rob and good to hear from you.  Where are you now?

 

When Rob writes it's worth reading because he usually researches stuff very thoroughly and with an engineering mind set.  Last year in La Paz I got a two hour dissertation on chain plate metalurgy on China Doll in the midst of lots of fiberglass dust (and cold beer!). If I could afford him I'd hire Rob for my projects

 

I'll elaborate on what he commented.  I actually do have experience with a half dozen installations using the thru-hull for the ground plane, including my own boat.  My passport has both:  the copper foil running throughout the boat and later the thru-hull connection.   With the foil, I had adequate, but good performance on all but the lowest frequency bands (3-4mhz). That's indicative of a ground/counterpoise deficiency. In an attempt to improve the counterpoise I ran the foil to the nearest T-hull (cockpit drain) and the improvement in performance was immediate and dramatic.  I have since used this on a half dozen other installations that I have done for friends and customers and they all have performed well.  Per Gordon West and some others, this is at least as effective if not more so than lots of copper foil.  Having both is probably even better, but a lot of additional work.   I suspect that connection to either a T-hull or a Dynaplate will have similar performance.

 

The T-hull should probably not be bonded.  I've done a lot of research and work on electrolysis and galvanic corrosion issues recently (I'm marina manager for our yacht club marina), and I'm pretty convinced that nothing good comes from bonding thru-hulls.  My own experience on my boat is the only thru-hulls that have not had a problem are the ones that are NOT bonded.  Every T-hull that is bonded will blister the paint on the T-hull within 6-12 months.  The copper in the paint is being electrolysized. That doesn't happen with the unbonded ones.  Read Stan Honey's article (that's the one Rob referenced below) on the West Marine Advisor about grounding.  He concluded the same.  The next time I repaint I am disconnecting all my bonding of through hulls. 

 

I'll echo Rob's comments about the backstay connection.  I clean mine once or twice a year and it's almost always improved performance.  That's the first thing I check if I think I'm not getting the performance I expected.  Rob, do let us know if you find a source for that fancy connector, as I'll buy one, too.  

 

Grounding the radio case is very important, but not for purposes of improving the counterpoise.  The case and the outside of any cabling (coax and control cables) coming back to the radio should not be radiating.  Generally, that's a result of the tuner not working or improperly run cabling.  Nothing good can come from that stray RF radiation and lots of bad if it gets into other electronics (like auto pilots!).  Plus it will cause your transmitter to cut back on its output power.  There are some inline choke devices that you can put on the coax (near the tuner) to prevent RF from coming back down the outside of the feedline.  Ferrites on the control cables will help, too.

 

Jeff

S/V Journey