ground dependant Aerial

[catshark]

howdy all, somehow the original aerial on the boat decides to make contact with my foot and jumps of the boat and ends up being a artifical reef...........so i bought a little 45cm vhf and noticed it was ground dependent, saying it had to be secured to a metal surface as the install.

done a back search on this forum and while there was some info on similar question , my itch was not scratched.

what i did was install the base up thru the cabin roof and between this installed a 400x400 sheetmetal gal to act as the ground plane. the whip then screws on top of the roof.

so from the brains trust can anyone confirm that this is satisfactory .Q1 Is the sheetmetal thick enough?

ill take it on the water next day or two to confirm a response

[scottar]

Doesn't need to be thick. Only needs to strong enough that it won't lose contact thru movement and vibration - something like tinfoil is no good in this regard. Ideally if you know someone that has a VSWR meter, get it checked to confirm the size of the ground plane is big enough.

[catshark]

always had ground independant aerials before so this was a new one , the base has cleats on it so as to grip against any metal making for good contact . the shorter aerial on the roof is nearly as long as the 1.2 whip i had on the gunnels so should be same same. the shorter whip is better on the roof and higher position so should be a positive. sheetmetal as a ground plane is hardly visible under the roof lining so should be allright.