"Garland Gray II" wrote in message
news:FuM9c.17580$Ft.5252@lakeread02...
They say there is no such thing as a stupid question, but I'm going to put
that theory to a real test.
I have removed a shroud from my catamaran to install insulators so it can
be
used as the SSB antenna. Since there is no backstay as such, a main shroud
will have to do. However, I now find that the sparmaker who rigged the
boat
is somewhat leery of my installing two more potential failure points in a
so
highly loaded and critical support (of course, all are critical). He
suggests using one of the lowers, but these just won't be very long.
In the end I expect I'll continue with the original plan to insulate a
main
shroud, but a thought came to me. The shrouds are inside a thick walled
plastic tube (which I had planned on removing), so I've wondered if rather
than using insulators I retain the plastic tube and secure a wire...or 2
or
3... along the length of the plastic tube as the antenna? I suppose the
presence of the grounded wire inside would interfere with the signal,
maybe
not. Would it work?

Garland,

Without having to hunt high and low for imaginary insulators that would
exceed the design strength of main strouds, consider adding a backstay _as
an antenna_ that splits off at a convenient height to connect to both stern
points Unless your boom is so long that you could not clear it with any kind
of backstay,. they could even attach to stern stanchions, as there would
never be a strain on the tie points. That would gain you a little more
clearance from the boom and walking into the antenna, etc. Running alongside
a grounded shroud would certainly couple your antenna wire to it. You could
also experiment with an inverted-vee using a flag halyard as the top point
and coming down fore and aft with it. Wouldn't cost anything to try that.

Jack