[Elecraft] Underground Antennas (WAS: Ham Ingenuity)

[Stuart Rohre]

Hee, hee.  Bet you did not expect someone to report they had experience with 
underwater antennas, but I have been on an experimental project to put the 
Rogers "FLEX" Folded Conical Helical HF antenna on a submerged vessel. 
(Written up in IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation)

Of course, it was not used while submerged.

I also had some HF antennas on ocean buoys that wash over pretty regularly 
in a high sea, so it is operated underwater part of the time.  Signal drops 
as you would expect.  At 5 watts power, they were not going to work well 
when in washover.  SWR goes crazy, but they right themselves pretty quick 
and that is what foldback SWR protection is for.  Rig was FT 5 watter.

-Stuart
K5KVH