Message-ID: <000601bf5334$5034b6e0$4031143f@oemcomputer>
Reply-To: "dfs" <dfs@gateway.net>
From: "dfs" <dfs@gateway.net>
To: "Lancair List" <lancair.list@olsusa.com>
Subject: antennae, basic rules, & other urban legends legends 
Date: Thu, 30 Dec 1999 18:09:29 -0800
Mime-Version: 1.0

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Lot's of interesting stuff in the last posting, gang. Here's my .02c, as
Brent puts it.

I have two coms in my 235 (KX-155 and King GPS with a com) and I found
room - not a lot of room, but room -  for two com antennas. One was built
into the vertical stab a la the early plans (not being sure whether that's
still recommended). The second is a Bob Archer com unit - looks like about a
three-foot long aluminum zig-zag silly sculpture - that works very well.
This thing was fitted just aft of the rear cabin bulkhead and had to be bent
into an arc to be stuck to the inside of the fuselage at that station. Used
the household sticky stuff called "GOOP" I bought at the local hardware
store to glue it in place - man! that stuff'll stick anything to anything!
(Had originally intended to just put it in on a temporary basis to test the
thing - but couldn't get it un-stuck without damaging it, so I left it as
is). Looks UGLY! Works better'n the one I purchased from the factory and put
in the tail. Since I never let anybody look back there except when I'm doing
an annual or fiddling with the battery, the fact that it's UGLY! doesn't
bother me a bit.

Had reflected energy checked at the local avionics shop and found the VSWR
for the original Com antenna was so high as to be marginally acceptable
while the Bob Archer antenna averaged around 1.2 - 1.25:1 over the band. The
Archer unit is now my No.1 Com antenna.

All the other antennas, save the GPS, were kits from the Grass Valley
outfit, and includes Glide Slope (right wing - outer bay), VOR/Localizer
(horizontal stab), Marker Beacon (inside the belly on the left side, and it
is quite long as the MB frequency is fairly low) and Xponder (Left wing -
just inside the wingtip). The xponder and VOR antennas function particularly
well - I've never had ATC complain that they couldn't see me on radar and
the VOR antenna usually sees stations further out than is generally useful.

The material kits for the Nav and Com radios plus the Xponder antenna kit -
includes spike and back-plane - was CHEAP! Don't remember just how cheap but
less than $50 - 60 and I hac stuff left over.

Sometimes, lo-tech works better than hi (in certain very selective
categories, of course) to which I can attest when, as my last task at
Rockwell/Boeing, I oversaw the replacement of very high-tech NiCad batteries
(and their terribly complex chargers) with Sealed Lead-Acid units on the
B-1B. Ended up saving the Gov't about 15 megabucks over the life of the
bomber!

So, as I've said here many times before, you pays your money and you takes
your chances.

Dan Schaefer

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