TopBand: Salt water helps...

[Richard McLachlan]

In article <3.0.5.32.19980425221959.007beb40@gaia.swipnet.se>,
DU7CC/SM6CNS Thomas Bevenheim <dx@swipnet.se> writes
>At my beach QTH, on Cebu Island, all vertical antennas standing out in salt
>water. Also, at high tide, water underneath the shack. On TopBand a Folded
>Monopole attached alongside a 105 feet bamboo pole. Vertical part 100 feet;
>the remaining 25 feet direct into the shack and a tuner. Pres (N6SS) named
>this one "Wet Spaghetti Special". Also a 75 feet vertical, with a 4x33 feet
>"hat" some 40 feet up. The Monopole is the winner. Not much of a ground
>system, but some hundred feet of junk wire at sea bottom.

Stew Perry W1BB had an antenna completely suspended over water at the
Winthrop Yacht Club. The shack was also over water. I seem to remember
that it did not work nearly as well as the one he had up at the water
tower on top of the cliff though.

The immediately local ground conductivity is crucial. I once put up a
dipole for a contest on the battlements of a castle at about 200 feet
agl. The castle was on a sandstone rock hill about 500 ft above the
surrounding plain. Local ground conductivity was very poor, and so was
the performamce of the antenna!
-- 
Richard McLachlan
G3OQT

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