SSB Antenna Cable Below Deck

[Hampus]

Any harm in letting the antenna cable from the tuner to the wire antenna run a few meters below deck before connecting to the wire? Placing the tuner in such a way would facilitate the grounding a lot. I know that all of the cable between the tuner and the wire in fact works as an antenna.

/Hampus

[James S]

My previous set up had several feet...maybe 5, from the tuner... under a birth and up through the deck, then another 10 or 12 until its connection above the insulator/isolator on the back stay.
It had excellent performance.

[DeepFrz]

The only problem I could see with that is if it ran close to sensitive equipment (such as your autopilot) or wiring for that equipment.

[Olorin]

One consideration might be having living things so close to the antenna when transmitting. People with pacemakers might be especially at risk.

[Hampus]

Thanks all.

Pacemakers won't be an issue. I'm 30 and the Admiral is 35

/Hamppus

[Olorin]

May you live and sail long enough that the pacemaker issue might come in to play.

[btrayfors]

It's not a good idea. The antenna starts at the tuner, and performance may be degraded. Further, you heighten the opportunity for RFI to do naughty things....both in terms of interfering with other onboard electronics and of those electronics creating noise and degrading SSB reception.

Get the tuner as close to the base of the antenna as you can. RF grounding can be accomplished in a number of ways, discussed earlier on this Board and others ad nauseum.

Bill

[AnchorageGuy]

I have to agree with Bill, and he certainly knows more about these radios than most. When we do installations we always try to keep the length to a max of 3 feet. I can't think of any installation over the years that we have not been able to accomplish this.

[James S]

My new installation is quite a bit closer, in both cases the antenna wire was/is not in any close proximity to any other electronics.
I have seen many instances where the tuner could not be placed close to the point the antenna wire exits the deck (talking about when using the back stay as the antenna).
Many boats have an aft lazarette...thats probably not a very good environment for the tuner.

[fairbank56]

You should have seen how the "professional idiots" installed the antenna wire on the Naval Academys new fleet of "Navy 44's". Tuner located on port side forward bulkhead of lazarette, exit hole deck fitting on starboard side aft near chainplate for the split backstay. GTO-15 run from tuner output inside wire loom with radar and GPS cables for about 12' before exiting wire loom. I have relocated the deck fitting to the port side and run the GTO-15 well away from the other wiring but still have about 5' of cable inside lazarette. The list of poor installation practice on these boats is lengthy. BTW, modern tuners are quite weather resistant and survive just fine in the lazarette and will survive equally well above deck as long as the cable entrance fittings are properly oriented.

Eric