triadic stay ssb

anyone out there with experience using triadic stay as ssb antenna?? we are having triadic stay installed next week - jane landry

Scott

Yes, the tuner must be as close as possible to the antennae. The standing wave ratio must be low. Reflected RF energy is wasted as heat and poor performance. Electrical noise must be eliminated too. Even a digital clock will make listening difficult. Turn off your inverter and all other RF generating devices when listening. Must be away from other boats too.

Please study Gordon West. West is the best. www.kp44.org/ftp/GroundingCounterpoise__GordonWestChapter8.pdf

Do not use a capacitive ground (copper foil all over) Use direct connection to sea water via very close to tuner too.
Flat 4 inch copper formed to a point from the radio to the grounding plate to outside sea water. Forms a virtual grounding plane
all around boat in conductive sea water. The RF signal is sprung into space as a sky wave via that and nice ground wave too.

The grounding portion or counterpoise is VERY important. It is half your antennae. The connection to a from the GTO-15 high voltage wire from your AT-140 to the stainless steel wire is problematic. Must keep clean. Best to eliminate it. I did.
I just use a continuous GTO-15 wire as my antennae, about 55 foot long. I raise as necessary via halard and form a figure "7" with it.
SailMail is very good. Call me if you would like. home 302-286-7134

some very good links for education:

ref: www.docksideradio.com/ see install guide for ICOM 802 with Proctor III modem AT-140 tuner

Hi Again,

more info: www.ropeantenna.com/Technical%20details.htm

www.tongacharter.com/ssb.htm Note the roll of aluminum foil test and clicks as tuner optimizes

www.bootkeyharbor.com/ProductInfo/BoatMa...s/WestIntroToSSB.pdf Gordon West INTRO

GUYS, This is it the Definitive TEST RESULTS pragmatic real world stuff:
www.kp44.org/ftp/SeawaterGroundingFor_HF...ios_byGordonWest.pdf



Tip..... Use a Fluorescent Tube and nice long one to check the Radio Frequency Energy being emitted.
Do at night for outside work. Just hold the tube in your hand.
Have somebody transmit and see the RF coming out with the tube.
You can see if the Standing Wave Ratio is correct and see if energy is being wasted.

Study Capacitive and Inductive Reactance in AC and Radio Freq circuits and learn the concepts.

Learn about how high frequency AC travels on the surface of copper wires and prefers flat 4 inch wide copper
due to the Inductive Reactance.

An Old Antarctic Hero from the South Pole radio shack,



Patrick

I would think that the Triadic stay is too far from the tuner to work well. Ours connects to the backstay of the mainmast, about 5 feet above the deck. Works well. Just make sure no one is holding onto the backstay during transmissions.

Roy B.

We installed our SSB pretty much as Scott indicated. I put the Autotuner in the aft hanging locker (at the aft end of the locker), directly under the the starboard side back stay to the main mast. This stay already had two isolation fittings (top and bottom) from the previous owner. I ran the G-50 cable up from the Autotuner to a new thru-hull fitting and then up the lower part of the stay until it was above the lower isolator. I knew that the connection of the cable to the stay would be problematic. I used the really sticky and stretchable tape that "melts" together after you lap it over and over around. I went up a couple inches above and below the exposed center wire of the G-50 cable. I wound the wire around the stay following the groove of the cable windings. Over 4 years in the tropics, I never had a problem with that.

Like Scott recommended we used 4 inch copper sheet down from the Autotuner to ground it to the starboard thru-hull under the forward end of the chart/work bench. I used two SS hose clamps to connect it to the thru-hull. Not an ideal solution but it seems to work. It is important to keep the copper sheet flat, including at any changes in direction - just make a tidy bend like folding a piece of paper and press it flat so that it goes in the direction you want it to. It was not especially easy but I got it done.

It seems to work fine and we got a good SWR.

Just my two cents.

Joe

Hi Again, Joe describes the way most people have installed their SSB. This setup is traditional. It does work...sort of. It does waste most of the performance of your SSB. A 150 watt transmitter may have very poor performance and still work, but it is wasting much of its output. I could use a 5 watt transmitter on my setup and probably get similar performance. Most of the efficiency is in the Antennae system. If one takes a fluorescent tube and checks for example... the 90 deg bend of the wide copper foil... one sees a significant portion the RF energy emitted straight out and not following the bend. The Electric Field and Magnetic Field of the RF wave is pulsing millions of times per second. It is high frequency Alternating Current. It interacts with the surface electron cloud of the copper foil via Inductive and Capactive Reactance in a manner that is not intuitive to most humans. The surface electron fog on the copper foil almost acts as a wave guide to the RF wave. No sharp bends please. Also any connection is an interface. A significant portion of the RF energy is reflected at that junction. Best to not have connections. When I was at the Amundsen South Pole station I had a oscilloscope, spectrum analyzer, absorptive power meter, and a very nice crossed needle Standing Wave Ratio meter. I measured and experimented a great deal. A good lay overview of REFLECTIONS and SWR here: www.ycars.org/EFRA/Module%20C/TLSWR.htm Click on the Animations to see the principles. click back to continue reading. Animations are much better than using the math tools.

That rope antennae link is your best bet. http:\\www.ropeantnnae.com It is a compromise. All things on a sailboat are compromise. One must raise the antennae to use it. Not a good thing in a ice storm. But I can select appropriate lengths by gently bending the "7" shape of my raised GTO-15 wire (high voltage wire used in Neon Signs) for the frequency I am using at that moment. I can modify the geometry as needed for that use. The Hallard is attached at the gentle bend in the seven shape. The SKY Wave is sprung and launched out into space at that bend. The GROUND WAVE is emitted horizontal and parallel to the sea surface for shorter distances.
One can use lower frequencies and GROUND WAVE to talk to past the VHF range of 25 miles or so...up to several hundred miles with HF.
I use this ground wave many times when using my Proctor III modem and Sailmail to send an email in noisy conditions.

If anyone wants to experiment. I would be glad to try contact. I could send an email test too via Saimail if you want.
This software calculates the best frequencies and times to try.
greg-hand.com/hf.html Greg Hand is really smart! This software works great.

background info for education: www.weather.nps.navy.mil/~psguest/EMEO_o...le3/module_3_2b.html
This shows the layers of the ionsphere and how to find the optimum freq. FOT and others... MUF LUF etc...

---

BEST COMPROMISE on a sailboat

---

I made one but you can buy one here:

www.ropeantenna.com/
Dr. John Gregory, a RF designer, with a specialty in marine RF communications. The antenna has been tested extremely successfully on many different sizes and models of vessels. www.ropeantenna.com/Technical%20details.htm Read this to get the Technical Details of why it is worth the effort.

p.s.
When I was at South Pole we ONLY had HF Radio. We had a beamed Yagi and Log Periodic anteannae.
Grounding was a problem sitting on 9000 feet on almost insulating dielectric ice. \
So we had a Counterpoise challenge too.

No satellite, no internet like now.

Sometimes we could not hear the world for days or weeks due to solar storms.
OAE used to be a term used as a term of endearment between winter-overs.

Patrick on Gaia,
Old Antarctic Explorer OAE from the South Pole Radio Shack

It is always fun and interesting to learn about better techniques and materials. In the boating world, a lot of things have remained the same, but electronics have definitely made a huge difference and the technology and understanding is improving fast. Patrick gave info that I was not aware of in 2003 when I put in our SSB radio system. The information that he has may have been available back then, but I did not find it. Kudos to Patrick for bringing the latest and greatest thought on the installation of SSB's, and especially the links to RopeAntenna and the other online articles.

I have no doubt that the "rope antenna" would be far superior to using a stay with a GTO-15 cable attached such as what I installed. I do wonder how well it would do in a gale, and whether it would be fun to run it up during one if it weren't permanently mounted. It would have windage like any other rigging and would have to be properly tensioned to avoid whipping around. I would want to have my antenna up all the time since weather is unpredictable and often the time you most need good radio contacts (weather faxes, other stations, etc.) is when the sea is at its worst.

I would be interested in anyone's experience or preferences on this.

I was not aware of sharp angles on copper strip to be bad. This was the common, and recommended, practice 7 years ago. The issue is to be able to route the strip in such a way to avoid any sharp bends. If I had to do it over again, I would have installed an exterior ground plane, and I would use the "ladder" strip as noted in one of the articles.

But again, very informative information. If I were fitting out a boat now, I would implement Patrick's advice, but with some concern on raising and lowering a rope antenna.

Good Morning Joe and all Captains,

Joe, Wish I had all the experiences you have had in your real world sailing across the Pacific, New Zealand, Australia.
Please call me sometime to chat. 302-286-7134 Come sailing with me anytime in the Chesapeake, Please.
Do you know about towed HydroGenerators?

Joe is absolutely correct. During bad weather is just the time you may need the SSB and going out on deck to fiddle with raising an antennae is not optimum. I simply could not do it last week during the ice storm...too dangerous.
But what if the mast is gone? What if the backstay is gone? Options? Backups?

Rope Antannae can be put up in an emergency situation in just a few minutes...hooked to whatever.

The Rope Antennae has a permanent option too. It uses Stayset from New England Ropes. One can tension it well to keep flapping, flopping to a minimum and it can be kept up permanently. The outer braiding can take up to 3000lbs of tension without straining the wire inside. I will buy two as a backups to my braided GTO-15 high voltage wire that I currently use. The disadvantage will be a static geometry and of course, it will be at the mercy of the weather/corrosion. Currently my antennae is kept stowed and away from salt, sun, and water 99.9 % of the time. With a static geometry one will be optimized for only one frequency range. What if the sun and/or the ionosphere is not cooperating on that frequency range? Then you simply will not get that weather info you desperately need. That E layer and F layer change all the time folks. The Ground Wave changes too. Look at the software link I sent last time. It predicts the optimum FREQUENCIES and TIMES to try.

Options are good! Backups are good! Especially if your mast has just gone away...no backstay...no SSB antennae just when you need it most.

OTHER IMPORTANT DETAILS...the devil is in the details...Silicon Bronze studs, washers, nuts please, Gold Coated please.
Seal well. No moisture please. Go thru the entire slide show to see the details(see the slide controls at bottom)
....VERY IMPORTANT DETAILS. No connections best...just continuous...eliminates reflections of RF that simply go to heat your boat. i.e. Connect SSB RADIO DIRECTLY to BATTERIES via fuse not circuit breaker and use very heavy wire... minimize voltage drop please.

A nice circular gold foil tapering to a point at the end inside a 30,000 volt insulator cover would be the very best rope antannae, but we do not live in Utopia.
So use braid copper/silver/nickel that is tinned...marine grade inside the Stayset New England Rope ...or buy one already made.

The permanent installation of the Rope Antennae is Here: www.cruiseEmail.com or
www.ropeantenna.com/
Dr. John Gregory, a RF designer, with a specialty in marine RF communications. The antenna has been tested extremely successfully on many different sizes and models of vessels.
www.ropeantenna.com/Technical%20details.htm
Read this to get the Technical Details of why it is worth the effort.

Questions:

Dr. John Gregory John Sloop

w3ate@att.net jsloop@austin.rr.com

954-815-8411 512-779-5695

p.s. this link did not come out correctly in my last email

background info for education:
www.weather.nps.navy.mil/~psguest/EMEO_o...le3/module_3_2b.html
This shows the layers of the ionsphere and how to find the optimum freq. FOT and others... MUF LUF etc...


Any takers on attempting contact via SSB?
When Al Hales and Ellen (Phoenix) were in the Bahamas (Exhumas) we made contact nicely from Delaware.

Patrick on Gaia

Hi Again,

The important education link still did not come out correctly on the Whitby site:

Please copy this entire line and paste it into your browser.


background info for education:



www.weather.nps.navy.mil/~psguest/EMEO_o...le3/module_3_2b.html




This shows the layers of the ionsphere and how to find the optimum freq. FOT and others... MUF LUF etc...

www.weather.nps.navy.mil/~psguest/EMEO_o...le3/module_3_2b.html


=====> EXERPT ======= see the animations too....this info is from the NAVY post grad school...good stuff!

HF Radiation - Choosing the Right Frequency
Learning Objectives

* Be able to explain to radio operators and other technicians what controls HF propagation under normal conditions.
* Be able to explain how various environmental and engineering factors control the values of the plasma frequency, the critical frequency (fo), the maximum usable frequency (MUF), the lowest usable frequency (LUF) and the frequency of optimum transmission (FOT) and why these parameters are important to HF.
* Be able to use model predictions of these parameters to determine the best HF frequency to use for a particular situation or mission.

Introduction
We've seen HF frequencies make use of the skywave mode that allows long distance transmissions. The specific frequency to use depends on ionospheric conditions, which are constantly changing. Choosing the best frequency to use for a given situation is not a trivial task. Most HF radio operators have a general idea how frequencies change as a function of the time of day, and they know that sometimes there are problems. But many of them don't understand the nature of the required frequency changes and the problems that sometimes occur. This web page will describe how you can make the best choice for frequency. This requires the use of computer models that can been run locally or from model and observed data available on the Internet. In order to use these models and Internet sources, you need to know something about how the ionosphere affects HF radiation. You also need to understand the terminology that is used by the models and sources providing information on HF communications. This page concerns normal conditions that we can expect most of the time. Later, we will consider "space weather" which creates less frequent but potentially disruptive events.
Plasma Frequency

All matter consists of positively-charged protons and negatively-charged electrons. (There are other "subatomic" particles, but we don't need to concern ourselves with these here.) For most matter that we are familiar with (gases, liquids and solids) one or more protons are grouped together to form a nucleus while electrons swarm around them; this is called an atom. A "neutral" atom has the same number of electrons and protons; this it the typical situation here on the surface of the earth. Earlier we discussed how in the ionosphere, radiation and particles from the sun can knock electrons away from atoms, resulting in negatively-charged "free electrons" and positively-charged ions. The amount of free electrons that are present is called the electron density.

Free electrons are not attached to a particular nucleus. Matter in this form is called "plasma". In a plasma, the negative free electrons and the positive ions are attracted to each other by the electromagnetic force, but they are too energetic to stay fixed together an atom. As a result the free electrons and ions vibrate back and forth. The frequency of vibration depends on the number of free electrons (see Figure 1).

Thanks for the much more expert, and more recent, thoughts about the best way to install SSB's and antennas on boats. No one should take my comments as from an expert, as I am not, and I hope no one took my comments as such. We met many people who had much more sophisticated setups than we did, but ours met our needs at the time. I am somewhat an expert on electric systems on boats, but anything else I contribute will be solely based on our personal experience. For radios and specifically SSB's,we would defer to the people who have studied this far more than we have. That is one of the best things about this forum.

Eureka, I finally found this from the Australian Govt.

Very good info on the Ionosphere and HF comms ...with diagrams

www.ips.gov.au/Category/Educational/Othe...0to%20HF%20Radio.pdf


When one knows the concepts of how the signal propagates, it allows the operator to choose the TIME/FREQ to optimize the communications. The propagation models are a necessity as well as the Solar Conditions reports.


Perhaps of Interest:

One of our National Science Foundation experiments my second winter-over in Antarctica was on "Whistlers"
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whistler_%28radio%29

RF from Lightning discharges in the Northern Hemisphere propagate in "wave guides" and
appear at the conjugate points in the Southern Hemisphere as WHISTLERS.
We had a VLF and ELF antennae. Nuclear Subs use these frequencies.
There are recordings of how they sound on these links.
Mike Trimpi from Standford Univ. was working for the Principal Investigator PI
Mike is famous for discovery of the Trimpi Effect (electron bubbles in the E layer)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whistler_%28radio%29
Miek saw these Sferic signals propagated via the "wave guide" of our planet's inosphere layers.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sferic

When one listens on HF on your SSB in the various modes AM, SSB, CW, etc...
One can hear the Over the Horizon Radar = the Russian Woodpecker
Whistlers, and many other interesting sources of noise, even noise of our Sun and other suns and objects in space

Patrick

When we purchased MENEHUNE, we had considerable noise when our SSB was in "receive" mode..... we did all sorts of things to get rid of the noise, but no luck!

Then, about 2 yrs ago, I read (somewhere(?)) that nearby fluorescent lights or LED indicators could be the cause. Sure enough when receiving, I turned OFF all nearby fluorescent lights and LED indicators , one of which was a mere 6" from the cable that connects the transmitter to the autotuner, and now reception is much more clear.

Now I must go back... remove the grounding wires, and install copper foil.

john cece
MENEHUNE W42 #195 (1982)

Captain John,

Absolutely correct!

Noise is the biggest problem when trying to listen on your HF radio.

Local sources are usually the strongest. Fluorescent Lights emit high frequency Radio energy.
So do: Inverters, Digital Clocks, Microwaves, Refrigerators, LEDs indicators, the list goes on.

Best to turn off your Inverter. That way most of those sources are unpowered when listening.

One must still look at the DC powered devices too and other boats and things on the dock.

Best to try HF listening way out away from civilization. Back side of the moon is a good place.


p.s. Note the RF Chokes that must be placed during installation. They are important.
This helps diminish your own RF emissions and interference with your own computer and systems.


Patrick

Hi All,

After listening to Herb Hilgenberg repeatedly tell people to shut down their systems while trying to communicate with him, I decided to set up a separate, fused direct link to the battery bank, bypassing the main ship's DC power system. Similar to the setup on the bilge pumps. This allowed me to quiet the vessel while transmitting. Works well for short periods like email, listening to Chris Parker, etc. I have good grounding and copper ribbon connectors.

An added advantage is that the person on the helm needs to be warned so as to take over manual or wind steering on the boat, thus avoiding the erratic behaviour of the Raymarine autopilot when transmitting, even with good SWR.

BIG drawback is that essential systems such as the refrigeration are shut down, hence the large label tapes on the Nav Station and the
companionway stairs saying FRIDGE ?? to remind me to power up again. So far no disasters.

David

W42 #321 Shamal

Please put me on the list...... I have a SSB instllation here at home...... I keep playing with the antenna which is hanging from a tree near the house.....

already in existence is the Cruiseheimers SSB Net: 8152 KHz (USB) at 0830 local each morning..... this is an East Coast/Bahamas net that links already many cruisers, some of whom are Whitby/Brewer owners......it is a controlled net, just listen for a few minutes, and you;ll catch on real quick.....

john
MENEHUNE (resting on-the-hard in Maryland).

Scott,

Great, I just used the ICEPAC Point to Point propagation model. Newark, DE to Marathon, FL and assume return path identical.
That may not be true. spaceweather.com/ Shows sunspot number is 54 We can try.

Ran it for Mean Signal Power at receiver. Looked at Signal to Noise too.

Looks like best times and freqs are:

between 3 hrs and 11 hrs UT and about 6 MHz

Eastern Time USA is -5 hrs UT

So EST = 2200 to 0600 hrs 10pm till 6am The Night Shift.


I have to travel this week. We could try next week.

Do you stay up late? I usually get up very early. Prefer very early schedule.

I am willing to stay up late. Name a time.

We could use 6 MHz and coordinate via our cell phones to move frequency if necessary.

Please call me at home or email me to coordinate first.
patrickecornelius@comcast.net hm 302-286-7134


Patrick on Gaia.

Captain John,

The FOT and times are different for us compared to Scott and me.

Download and run that ICEPAC Point to Point and see what I see.

I have heard that Cruiseheimers net sometimes. We tuned into Chris Parker all the time in the Bahamas.

You and I could try a different schedule? Please call me after the 21st Feb to coordinate.

Patrick 302-286-7134 home.