Originally Posted by
John Hayward
Hi Pat,
The antenna part is quite easy on the WylieCat 30. The mast is carbon fiber with no other wires close and therefore not a radiator, so just run a piece of wire (any gauge that doesn't break is fine, insulated is fine, but shielded is NOT) up on a spare halyard when you want to send/receive and run it down when your done. Alternatively you could tape it to the mast or silicone it if you wanted it up permanently. For the grounding, you could take a piece of copper foil and put a weight on the end and drop it over the stern when you wanted to send/receive. Both of these would be a bit of a pain when you wanted to use the radio, but on the positive side would require no modifications to the hull or deck and corrosion and other common problems would be very visible. And, yes this would work. Tossing a piece of copper foil over the side at the dock attached to the existing grounding sytem and checking signal strength, and SWR with and without is a common method of trouble shooting permanent installations.
Good Luck!
John
Dream Chaser