New water repellent dielectric materials

The problems encountered with dielectric materials presently used in submarine antenna systems emphasize the need for improved materials. It is essential that a submarine be able to transmit its message as soon as the small whip antenna, for example, breaks water. The antenna insulator not only may have an accumulated coating of dirt from prolonged exposure to the weather but also may have been submerged for many hours under substantial hydrostatic pressure; thus it is likely to be dirty as well as wet as it surfaces. Under these conditions, an insulator made of the currently standard fluorocarbon may have an arbitrary insulation resistance of only one megohm with the result that some 90% of the power applied to the antenna is lost in surface leakage.