There is a lot of misinformation in Dan's post regarding antennas and batteries. 1. Alkalines produce MORE voltage then nicads although the curve is different. A radio that produces 5 watts with nicads may produce 7 or 8 with fresh alkalines. The nicads will maintain a more constant voltage, and therefore wattage output, but will die, virtually without warning. I've never heard the term "Energy Density"? 2. I don't know what type of telescoping antenna Dan is referring to, but the length of the antenna is not necessarily a key factor in determining the performance of the antenna. The small duckies tend to be inefficient but they are factory tuned for the frequency and radio they are designed for. A telescoping whip would have to be accurately tuned for the operational frequency by extending it to the exact length, assuming it was long enough to function as a 1/4 wave. Other factors including the connector can affect the tuning. This would ideally be done using a field strength meter. 3. Today's nicads are almost memory free and don't require much coddling. 4. Optimum performance from a fiberglass kayak would be obtained by mounting a 1/2 wave whip somewhere on the boat. The 1/2 wave performs well without a ground and should dramatically out perform an antenna mounted on the radio. A mag mount with a piece of ferrous metal under the deck or hatch cover may do the trick. 5. If you have any friends that are amateur radio operators, they can be a good source of information. The amateur VHF band is just below the marine band, and a lot of amateur equipment will operate (illegally) in the marine bands. Antennas and other gear can be easily modified to work in the marine bands and most amateur test equipment will operate in the marine band as well. Cya W2PN *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.gasp-seakayak.net/paddlewise/ ***************************************************************************Received on Mon Jan 11 1999 - 07:14:03 PST
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.4.0 : Thu Aug 21 2025 - 16:30:03 PDT