HF Radio Earth Plate

[offshore]

Hi all

We are fitting a HF radio to our boat and have received conflicting advice about an earth plate. If anybody has fitted a HF radio did you use a sperate earth plate or did you find another way to earth it.

Barry

[krawall]

Hi,

to my knowledge, you need to fit one. One brand that I know is dynaplate which is recommended by the local guy here.

Just googled this up
www.sailnet.com/forums/gear-maintenance/906-ssb-ground-any-dynaplate-users.html

Hope that helps.

Tom

[krawall]

Now someone told me, since we have iron keels, we can just bond to the keel!

Anyone has ideas on that?

Tom

[Admiral]

The better the earth the better the performance. You need to do it properly and bond the transceiver and ATU with 3" copper strip. A dedicated earthing plate (Dynaplate) is well worth the investment too.

Admiral

[Peter]

you have probably solved this by now but earth for ssb's is an art which I have found illusive. I originally ran 100+ ft of copper foil in my bilge and hooked up to a dynaplate. It worked poorly. I have since run directly from the tuner to the engine intake thru hull. It improved immensely. I am going to double that up to the sink thru hull.
Were u succesful?

[offshore]

Hi Peter
We fitted an earth plate and have had reasonable success raising the people we need to talk to. We mainly use the HF for logging in when we are racing. One problem we have had is the antenna was conected to the wire in the backstay rather than the solid stainless stud and water got into the connection. All fixed now. Might try running another conection from the tuner to the through hulls and see if it improves the signal

Thanks
Barry