lml@lancaironline.net Mailing List Archive

When I got my 360 it had problems with the comm antenna. I purchased a glasair strip comm antenna and installed it on a piece of floorboard trim of the same length and width. The lightest I could find. I then took the whole thing and pushed it as far up into the tail as I could get it and pushed the other end as far back and down as it would go. It is not vertical, probably 45 degrees or so. I put a piece of glass on the end of the floorboard trim, drilled a hole in it and drilled a hole in a small piece of glass I bonded to the bottom of the fusalage where the trim was near. I then took a zip tie to hold the trim piece in place. While it doesn't work perfect I have been able to get ATIS 50 miles out from my home airport.

I think Glasair sells the antenna and triax cable for $80 bucks.

Matt

From: GT PHANTOM <gt_phantom@hotmail.com>
To: lml@lancaironline.net
Sent: Tuesday, February 3, 2009 4:30:59 PM
Subject: [LML] Which Antenna?

I've got a Lancair 320, and it seems likely that the original comm antenna buried in the vertical stab is beyond usable (either poorly installed originally, or poor ground plane - but in any event no way to dig it out and fix it).

There is an old Loran antenna in the tail (no longer used) which is virtually identical in dimensions to a Comant CI 122 bent whip. It doesn't currently have a ground plane, but I could stick one in there.

I have also heard of some kind of flexible antenna that gets glued to the insides of the tailcone.

Questions:

- What antenna works best (given that it is too late to embed in the vertical stab)?
- What size ground plane do I use?
- Do I ground the ground plane and, if so, where?
- Do I allow the antenna wire shield ground to electrically connect to the ground plane, or should they be insulated? (I can imagine grounding the ground plane to the battery in back, having it contact the antenna shield which grounds to the bus in front, and having that situation cause a loop which might have adverse consequences)
- How critical is it to use the newest kind of coax? The old coax is embedded down the side of the plane away from all signal wires, and if I replaced it I'd have to run the new one up the center with a lot of other wires...

Thanks all!

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