WARNING...Antenna combiners

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Jun 10, 2004
12
- - St Clair Shores, MI
Just a friendly warning for anyone who has or is considering putting a VHF-AM/FM antenna combiner on their boat....BE CAREFUL! Shakespeare sells a unit designed to allow you to use your VHF antenna to be used as your AM/FM antenna source, and if your rigging/keel ground is separate from your boat's DC ground, this unit will allow a current path between the two. After discovering my brand new Flex-O-Fold prop was suffering from galvanic corrosion, with a zinc installed on the shaft, I found that this antenna combiner was providing a current path for stray DC from the marina water to enter from the keel and exit from the prop, causing galvanic action and eating my beloved Flex-O-Fold! See Don Casey's book "Sailboat Electrics Simplified", page 166-167, for the full explanation on this process. If you do not have a flexible, insulated coupling on your propshaft, any connection between your keel and DC system will eat your prop if any stray DC exists in the water!
 
Jun 4, 2004
25
- - kemah, tx
zincs installed??

do you not have zinc collars installed on the prop shaft? that is what they are for. no offense, just asking.
 
Jun 7, 2004
944
Birch Bay Washington
Zincs will not help if the ground is bad

The problem is that the antenna ground gets connected to the AC ground or the DC ground. Lots of boats get miswired and a problem like Tim's can be caused by another boat entirely. The zinc will not always help. I just talked to a marine corrosion expert and it was a real education. I no longer will leave my boat plugged in at the dock if I do not have to keep it warm. He told me of a boat which had been miswired and was draining 17 amps of AC into the water. It was not noticed for months since there was only one meter shared by the whole dock. I am looking further into this issue.
 
Jun 10, 2004
12
- - St Clair Shores, MI
Zinc is installed

Robert, Yes, I do have a zinc installed, I mentioned that in my post :) Patrick is correct also, your boat doesn't even have to be plugged in to have a problem. In fact, my problem had nothing to do with the boat being plugged into shore power anyway. The problem is simple, if your boat's keel & rigging ground (lightning protection) is connected to the DC ground (batt negative, engine, etc.), there is a path for stray DC in the water to go between the keel and the shaft, and the prop corrodes regardless of whether you have a zinc or not! I did not install the antenna combiner in question, I boat the boat and it already had it. I never gave it a second thought until I noticed my prop corroding and had to find the problem ASAP. My marina has 2-3 volts of stray DC in the water all around the area I'm in, so I don't have a clue where it's coming from, but it doesn't matter now anyway. Hope that clears it up. Tim
 
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