lcottrell
Joined: 29 May 2006
Posts: 1494
Location: Jordan Valley, Or
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 Posted: Tue Apr 13, 2010 12:03 pm Post subject: antenna's |
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Mike,
I have done a bit of playing around with antenna's on both a Mark III and my current Firestar. The first Mark III that I had, had a 1/8 th wave ( I assume since it was very short ) on the top of the nose cone. It worked some of the time, but was never good enough to keep the tower operators happy, and it had a regular aircraft radio in it. Nav com, I believe. I sold that aircraft, so its not a problem any more. I kept my Firestar and only run an I Com hand held in it. My antenna system is the same set up as that made by R Pike, although both were developed independently. My ground plane is riveted to the bottom of the cage tubes, and is in a V shape. If I had talked to Richard I would have glued a round plate to the fabric and possibly would have had a more efficient antenna. I have also experimented with the location and found that mine seems to work the best on the bottom of the cage. I put it on top of the wind screen just below the level of the wing and the performance was bad enough that I immediately put it back on the bottom.
[img]cid:9CFE8B37CCA14E8F80C55B3666596286(at)larryPC[/img]
As you can see (a bit fuzzy ) I put a bend in it so that it wasn't dragging on the ground, but the length is 23 1/2 inch. That is good enough that I can talk to the wife ( last trip ) at 29 miles. She can hear me better if I am flying away from her, remember my ground plane is in a V with the widest end pointed to the rear. This is not by the way line of sight, the house is down in a low spot. Now John told you about his placement and antenna in an earlier post. Last year when he was flying in we talked at 60 miles, He was up I think 9000 feet, and I had no trouble hearing or understanding him.
I personally liked the antenna construction that was sent to you, The V type with the balun, but I can find no where to put one on my plane that I like. So I guess I will stick with what I have. Almost anything will work well enough to talk to a tower at the normal 5 mile range, even a rubber duck.
Larry
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