[Antennas] 4BTV or 14AVQ?

[Charles Greene]

Hi,

I have had some experience with marine antennas over the years.  Currently 
I have a insulated back stay on my 26' sailboat tuned with a LDG RT-11 
remote tuner which is mounted in the stern of the boat, inside just under 
where the back stay comes down.  It tunes well and works out well on 40 
meters up.  The ground is a pair of heavy wires going to the keel and also 
connected to the bronze sea fittings.  Excellent ground in sea water.  On a 
57' fishing boat my son owns, we bought a Shakespere 23' marine SSB 
antenna.  It is just a wire inside a 14' fiberglass tube, no loading coils, 
with a 8' whip on the top, connected to the wire inside.  If you mount it 
on the side of the boat, it just gives a 23' vertical antenna plus the feed 
wire to the antenna.  If you mount it on a mast, 30' up. it gives an 
antenna 53 ft long.  We have a ICOM 700 SSB and a SGC 230, an older but 
still marketed and excellent antenna tuner.  On the marine SSB band, there 
is the international life boat frequency of 2182 KHz you need to cover and 
some more MF frequencies, so you need the longer antenna.  For the ham 
bands, a 17' whip (which you can also buy from Shakespere is probably a 
good compromise.   I used my ICOM 706 and a manual antenna tuner as a 
maritime mobile on a trip up the East coast last Winter.  I used a 20 meter 
dipole fed with open wire line, so I could tune it on 20 and 40 meters.  It 
swang around a lot when the boat rolled and the SWR was all over the place, 
but it stilI  worked out ok.  Now I have 14300 set up in the ICOM M700, 
with a 16' sloping wire antenna and tuned with the SGC 230, which works out 
fairly well.  At the home station, I owned a 14AVQ for a few years, and now 
use a Hustler 6BTV.  It is located on my waterfront lot on Narragansett 
bay, and has about 480' of radials (could use more).  It gets salt spray in 
a storm, but the rain water washes it off, and it has help up well for 
about 15 years.  I had to replace the 10 meter trap a couple of years 
ago.  It corroded a bit and broke inside.  It was aluminium and couldn't be 
soldered.  So a trap antenna may work on a boat for awhile and the sea 
water itself makes a good ground, if you can connected to it.  However, it 
may be a problem mounting.  On the fishing boat for a ground we connect to 
the engine block which has a path to the sea water.   So a 17' vertical 
wire or whip, base tuned with an automatic antenna tuner is a good antenna 
that will hold up in the sea water environment.  If you are on a fresh 
water lake, you might try a 1/2 wave trap vertical like the R8 and 
subsequent antennas.  You might make a 17' using a 8' stainless steel whip 
mounted on top of a 1 1/2" PVC pipe 9' long with a #14 wire inside 
connected to the whip, mounted on the side of the cabin for a motor 
cruiser, if you don't want to pay the $100 + for a Shakespere.

73, W1CG,  Chas

At 08:56 PM 9/6/2004, you wrote:
>Most vertical antennas like the 4BTV or the 14AVQ are designed to work
>against earth ground..
>Use on a boat requires a ground plate in the bottom of the boat making
>contact with the water at all times for ground or radials extending out
>from the boat while stationary (kinda hard to run them while moving :)
>OR use a marine style commercial 25ft whip and tuner....also the average
>metal vertical does not survive more than 2 years at most in the
>water/rust environment....less if its salt water!
>
>Real fiberglass marine whips were made for a purpose.....to be used
>around water but there are better ones than Suksphere! :)
>
>Chris
>WB5ITT
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: antennas-bounces at mailman.qth.net
> > [mailto:antennas-bounces at mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of JT Croteau
> > Sent: Monday, September 06, 2004 7:48 PM
> > To: Antenna Reflector
> > Subject: [Antennas] 4BTV or 14AVQ?
> >
> >
> > If you, like me, were in the market for one of the typical low cost
> > trapped verticals such as the Hustler 4BTV or Hy-Gain 14AVQ which one
> > would you choose or would you go with something else altogether?
> >
> > I'm looking for a simple multiband vertical for my boat but
> > looking for
> > something a bit better than your typical overpriced fiberglass marine
> > whip from Shakespere.
> >
> > Thanks
> >
> > - JT
> > - - -
>
>- - -
>
>Your moderator for this list is:
>Larry Wilson KE1HZ antennas-owner at mailman.qth.net
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