In article ,
"Vito Steockli" wrote:

The good old boys over on rec.boats.electronics continually worry over
having enough ground plane for their seagoing HF SSB antennae, which
typically comprise a vertical or near vertical insulated rigging element fed
thru a tuner. All of my HF antenna experience has been on land and I was
always led to believe that salt water otta make a great ground plane for a
HF vertical - at least a whole lot better than the dirt under mine. So why
does everybody add copper strips, et cetera, to their bildges?

TIA
Howard, K3DWW



The reason folks put copper in the bildge is very simple. These folks
are trying to couple the ground side of their antenna system to the
Salt water that their vessel floats in. This can be done either by
direct connection, or capacative coupling. In the direct connection
method, electrolysis is a MAJOR problem. Most of these folks don't
want their props and engines to dissappear in a matter on months, so
they try and keep their vessels DC Isolated from the water. What's left
is capacative coupling. How does one build a larger capacitor?
Increase surface area of the capacative plates. (salt water being one
plate) Decrease the distance between the plates. (Move the ground side
closer to the water) Copper inside the hull works, and adding more
surface area (copper) works. This isn't rocket science, but it does
take a few nurons firing for a few seconds to figure it out.

Bruce in alaska
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add a 2 before @