no-insulators SSB/HF antenna

[Coquina]

I may be buying a boat that has no HF antenna and rod rigging. I would love to have my SSB set up for the delivery home, but no antenna is obviously an issue.

Getting good insulators put in my wire backstay was expensive enough, I am thinking rod will be $$$$$$.
So, being cheap, here are my ideas:
1. Get a 23 foot whip. It will work, but that is a big antenna to stick on the stern of a sailboat.
2. Do the SGC suggested setup of wiring the tuner to the backstay and the ground connection of the tuner through the bilge to the base of the mast. They show only a bottom insulator to make a big loop. My thinking is that since the backstay is connected to fiberglass which is an insulator anyway, it will work.
3. Get the GAM split lead over-the-backstay antenna.
4. Make my own GAM, it looks to me like they are selling some kind of ham radio twinlead antenna wire for $400 instead of $50 Maybe not, but ever since the KISS ground thing I have been suspicious of very expensive wire.
5. Just string a wire from a halyard one way or another and worry about it when I get home.

[Rucksta]

I replaced the backstay with dyneema and inserted a 27 ft insulated wire.

Cheaper than a whip antenna or sourcing insulators and cost of swagging.
Plus I have a new backstay and the old one as spare.

[Bellinghamster]

I successfully used a 12 gauge copper wire, insulated with plastic antenna insulators top and bottom secured with ~2ft of 3/16" poly line to my masthead and outboard corner of my stern arch tube (to get it as far away from my backstay as possible). I soldered an insulated 12ga wire lead on the bottom end of it, through the deck to the tuner to avoid shocking people on deck. I had no problem using Pactor, and could talk with a Mexico net while in NZ.

The antenna is the easy part... getting a good ground plane is more work.

BTW - my radio came with a 3 piece 23' fiberglass pole/whip - I can't imagine trying to mount that on a sailboat adequately.

[Brian.D]

The two previous posts are examples of the Alternate Back Stay antenna. This is built by using wire rope, or the same material used for life line. It can be had for very cheap. You will need a free halyard to raise the antenna. That can be any halyard not in use, or have one installed. A length of 23' to 43' seems to be recommend. For experimenting, I used 35.5' at my home QTH to work all band in the Amateur spectrum and it worked just fine from 3.5 MHz on up.

As for grounding, there are many schools of thought on this. Gordon West recommends making a direct connection to sea water in lieu of Dynaplates or 100sqft of copper in the bilge. You can experiment with the sea water. Gordon has a writ up that can be found here.

One more choice is the Vertical Dipole if one wants to concentrate on a single band. Bill Trayfors, WA6CCA (SK), has a write up that can be found here. This antenna will not require any kind of RF grounding as it is a dipole.

Several options for you. I would personally NEVER, EVER cut my back stay. Even though it is said to be safe, I would be in doubt. That is just me.

All this is JMHO.

[GILow]

One member here uses his entire rig as an antenna on the 40 meter band, and it works magnificently. His signal invariably booms out better than practically everyone in the group.

I tried the same trick with my rig and it was hopeless.

I suggest you do give it a try before looking at other antenna solutions, it’s a pretty simple test. You might get lucky.

[MicHughV]

ugh....just went thru' this entire process on another thread...

this is how I did it..install antenna tuner at transom, install 6' length of 1.5" sch 40 pvc pole on stern pulpit, run length of GTO-15 wire from tuner to top of pvc pole. you can run the wire thru' the deck with an insulated fitting....WEST marine has these..

run 1/8" coated stainless steel wire from top of pvc pole to top of mast....leave about 1.5' short at either end and finish with an insulator....this can be found at any hobby store...about the size of your thumb...not necessary to do this, you can form an eye at each end, and extend the wire with braided line to top of mast and pvc pole...this will be your antenna. make sure it is at least 23' long,longer is better, and completely isolated from mast and pvc pipe...

clip the GTO-15 wire to the bottom of the 1/8" wire with a wire clip....there...antenna is done..

make sure you have a good ground...and you are in business...

[Bycrick]

A long time ago, I worked in two different AM broadcast stations where they quite successfully used what is called a "shunt-fed vertical” antenna. I’ve seen one boat that used a similar technique. In this last case, he a a split backstay with the connection about 8’ above the deck. The antenna output on the tuner went to one lower backstay at the deck. The ground for the tuner went to the other backstay. Both the chainplates were already isolated by the fiberglass. He didn’t bother to insulate the top of the backstay. It seemed to work well.

With a single backstay, you might just try the ground side of the tuner connected to the bottom of the backstay, the tuner located as far outboard as possible, and the antenna connection to the backstay run from the rail to a point on the backstay. I’d use a clip so I could move the connection point to find one that tuned well.

[MicHughV]

I saw a boat that rigged his main boom topping lift as an antenna....pretty much as I described. He cut a length of 1/8" plastic covered lifeline to replace the existing braided cord, where it ran over the main, and it used as the topping lift, ie, only that portion of the topping lift situated over the main was cut and removed. In its stead, he placed the 1/8" wire, with the small insulators at each end, then some braided line to to connect to top of mast and at end of boom at the remainder of topping lift line, that ran inside the boom.
He mounted an antenna tuner under a cockpit seat, or next to the seat, can't remember anymore...when he wanted to use the radio he clipped a length of GTO wire from tuner to antenna and was in business.

Off course, when he was done, the GTO wire had to be unclipped, but seeing as the radio is not used all the time, it was not an inconvenience. At anchor, you could likely arrange to leave it on. Swing the boom out over the water a bit, so the topping lift/antenna does not get interference from the backstay.