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By a process of elimination, I think I've narrowed the source of most of the
radio noise in my ES to static electricity generated by air rushing by the
primed surface of the plane in flight.  I'm flying in DuPont Corlar primer,
sanded only to about 180 grit, and whenever I rub the surface down, my hair
stands up like midnight on Halloween.  Whenever I key the mic to transmit on
either COM, I get lots of "hash", so much it's interfering with good
communication.  I've noticed, however, that it's airspeed dependent, but
doesn't seem to correlate much with rpm (eliminating alternator noise, which
I've filtered the bejabbers out of anyway).

At first I thought this might be either reflected RF from the antennas, but
Bob Archer's finest have good VSWR's.  Then I thought maybe radiated RF
being picked up here and there, but transmission is nice and clear when
taxiiing, so neither of these options are likely.

I'll know for sure when I have the plane painted later this month, but I
wonder if anyone else has run into this problem?  Also, anyone find it
persists?  Static wicks would be futile with the non-conductive ES airframe.

Jim Cameron, LNCE N82500,  Port Aransas, Texas   361-749-4266

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