Insulators in a split backstay

[Bob Pingel]

How do you insulate a split backstay for an SSB?

I can see two configurations:

- place one insulator off the deck, one at the masthead, and another just below the fork in the "other" leg. Would the little "leg" coming off at the fork do anything bad from an RF perspective?

- an insulator at the deck, one just below the fork, one just above the fork, and another at the masthead. You'd need to jumper around the insulated fork.

Obviously the first option uses one less insulator, but I wonder about side effects from an RF perspective.

Bob

[Brian Duff]

the standard is as your first description.

the one insulator just under the delta plate can have an eye in one end and then the swage or terminal.

don't kno which would be better for RF.

perhaps if you are really concerned then mount the tuner right at the delta and have a straight antenna with tuner close...?

[Renoir]

You might be surprised that you can communicate quite well with no insulator. Place the tuner as close to your RF "ground" wire and one of the backstay chainplates as possible. If the other backstay chainplate is grounded/bonded then remove that connection.

Most tuners will tune to anything yet it is the effective radiated output power that matters. Running a high-voltage wire up to an insulator generated great losses because of coupling between that wire and the rigging it is attempting to bypass so try tuning and communicating without one first. I realize the most installations are not done this way yet that is because of "herd mentality".
Rick