KISS-SSB™ Features and Specifications
Radial Ground Plane Grounding System for Marine, Air, or Land use.
This heavy-duty performer was initially designed for boats using HF SSB marine bands but works with practically any HF radio and tuner combo.
- Input power up to 500 watts.
- All Copper conductors are permanently sealed in durable PVC tubing.
- Stainless Steel 5/16 Ring Terminal.
- Heavy duty 47 inch 10 AWG Marine tinned copper lead connection.
- Tested with 1.2 to 1 or better SWR on SSB HF frequencies.
- Tested with 1.2 to 1 or better on 2mhz through 29mhz Ham freq.
- Tested with 1.2 to 1 or better on Winlink and Sailmail frequencies.
Technical Specifications:
- Frequency: 2-30 MHz HF frequencies with tuner
- Radial housing length: 9’ 10”
- SWR: 1.5 to 1 or better
- Impedance: (Ohms): N/A
- Connecting lead length 47 inches
- Max Input (Watts): 500 DC
- Ground: N/A
- Termination: One end termination 5/16 ring terminal
- Weight 3 pounds
- Polarization: N/A
- Radiation pattern: Omni-directional
Land based radio stations with tall antennas all have radials of the frequency they are transmitting on around the base, or the guy wires or even buried in the ground. They only transmit on one frequency, so the radials are the same length, if they transmitted on many frequencies the radials would all be different lengths even though they all do connect to the same point. What makes our KISS-SSB work so well is the patented ability to put a lot of different length radials in one housing to match all the frequencies desired and not have one length trying to react to many different frequencies. Plus, it puts it all in one easy package that is easy for the end user to install. Compared side by side with 100 feet of 3" fresh copper foil, and a bronze plate in the salt water outside of the boat the KISS-SSB works just as well. The advantage of the KISS-SSB is no maintenance, a lot less labor, no holes in the hull and costs a lot less. Plus, after a couple of years the KISS-SSB will probably work a lot better than the deteriorating copper foil and corroded bronze plate. There is a reason why the tuner manuals suggest measured radials, not one, but many, one length close to most bands used, and they all, even though different lengths, connect to the same terminal, not because they all act like one wire, but that there needs to be at least one close to a multiple of the wavelength of the frequency desired to transmit on. With this said, the KISS-SSB is in-itself a fre- standing reflective Ground Plane and is not dependent at all on the water line or where it is installed in relationship to the water line. Nearly every day we get orders from people that were referred to us from Icom, Furuno, Kenwood tech support staff. In 2005 when Icom was having problems with the "clipping" on their M-802's we found that didn't happen with users of the KISS-SSB, and that is because of the low SWR and the ability for the RF signal to be radiated out into space and not reflected back at the radio from boats with poor ground plane and antenna systems.
Installation
There is not a standard way the KISS-SSB has to be installed, we have seen, tested and heard of so many ways it has been impressive. However, there is one rule of thumb, the KISS comes with a four foot lead that can’t be trimmed or lengthened as the four foot lead is an integral part of the length of all the radials enclosed within the tubular housing. With that being said, the KISS will be within four feet of the tuner. Plus, we all know that the tuner should be as close as possible to the radiating antenna such as the back stay, or a fiberglass whip antenna on a motor vessel. Now once the four foot lead is connected to the tuner each and every boat will be different, but the rule of thumb here is to stretch it all out, four foot lead and the ten foot tube as best as possible, however if there are restraints as there normally will be you can feel free to run it back and forth in the lazarette, or coiled no less than a three foot diameter. It is not mandatory that the KISS be stretched out straight as it only sets up the inductance to resonate the signal off of the antenna. We have tested the KISS running down the middle of the bilge and even under the engine and the results were just fine, much to our surprise. We have heard of the KISS being run inside of a fiberglass arch above the wheelhouse on a large fishing vessel with good results. The most common installation of course would be in a lazarette or along the deck to hull joint just below the deck with nylon wire ties keeping the KISS secured out of your way. The KISS is often used by Ham operators with antenna restriction covenants that do not have an easy wire run to earth ground. They simply run a long wire in the attic and run the KISS underneath on the joists using an external tuner in the same location. We get a lot of questions from people that just do not understand that the HF frequencies (2-30mhz) require a two-part antenna system. You must have an antenna (back stay, whip or GAM) and a ground plane/Ground Plane such as the KISS-SSB is. The KISS-SSB is best described as "A tuned Ground Plane". The enclosed radials are cut to lengths to resonate the frequencies used by Marine SSB, Winlink/Sailmail, NOAA Weatherfax, Coast Guard.
In "VERY" Technical Words:
The KISS-SSB simply acts as inductively loaded dipole elements in parallel with the tuner bringing the backstay element to resonance effectively making a loaded, off-set fed vertical dipole.
Using the coil loaded 1/4 waves so that there is a current max at the feed point hence maximum radiation and the only ground loss being the ohmic loss in the inductance of the coil. By staggering the coils down the length of design there is also some capacitive loading from the non-resonant elements helping bandwidth and it obviates the issue of undesired resonances as well.
