Hi all,
Thanks for all your replies over the last few days, I have been away from a “proper” computer.
So hallosailor and sailboy21 are you saying that I don’t even need to clean the
paint off? Or am I still better cleaning it off?
hellosailer I have some copper sheet 1.5mm thick I was going to cut some of this into to 75mm strips.
On another question can the copper ground have sharp corners or should they not like lightening conductors?
Sailboy21 I am not sure how floating our DC is as I sure there is a common between the negative side of the batteries and the hull, the only common with the AC is the earths which indirectly must be connected to the neutral
line??.
btrayfors thanks for a bit of an insight into the antenna question, as you say I am lucky to have a steel hull, however I have a few more questions, I was planning to mount the tuner (alongside the steel hull) under the deck (wooden with steel frames, quite wide in places), and take the antenna out through the steel hull or out up through the deck, however this would be through the steel frames too, will this affect the aerial (the fact its passing through the steel) or should I try and opt for the wooden route?
I take it that the standing
rigging will affect the radiating pattern so putting the aerial next to the rigging (I was thinking half way between the mast and the standard rigging won’t give particularly good results), if I was to somehow insulate the stays nearest to the standard rigging would this help much?
The triatic is also connected to the ground through the stays and the cap, that could be insulated an use this stay but is probably only 30ft in length? I can’t run anything up through the masts, they are nearly 70 years old and they didn’t plan for electronics then!!
As you have suggested I had wondered about taking it from the top of the main mast to the afterdeck but I am not sure that would work that well, I then thought of using the inner fore stay and fitting
insulators in the stay, but the top end would be fairly close to the ground, would this matter?
I could try and insulate it with some bushes on the fixings as well as the proper wire
insulators would this be a possibility?
I am sorry for all the questions, life would be much simpler if it was just an ordinary fibre glass boat, but it wouldn’t be so interesting…..
Best Wishes
Michael