Tim Ward very kindly brought back Bob Archer Comm and transponder aerials for
me on a recent trip.
I gave them a good going over last night and checked the SWR on both of them.
The transponder aerial, made out of a square of PCB material with the aerial
copper clad on the PCB - including a balun in the pattern - has an SWR that
is well under 2:1 at both of the transponder frequencies. I have no doubts
that it will work very well with no builder adjustments.
The comm aerial is a folded dipole that requires only 26 inches (V) by 12
inches (H) of fuselage wall space - that's right, it can be curved to fit the
fuselage shape! The aerial is made of very thin alclad and is so deviously
clever it is almost illegal! The SWR again shows excellent chracteristics
across the range and I happily believe Bob's claims that ranges approaching
150 miles have been achieved.
If you want a gooood set of aerials for a modest cost with no user setup
other than to connect the cable to the aerials then I would recommend these
products.
While on the topic of nice toys to have, check out Audio Flight Avionics
http://www.rose.com/~afa/
I have one of their AFA10 units and it is definately in the best of class
bracket.
Regards
Tony
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Tony Krzyzewski tonyk@kaon.co.nz
Managing Director Ph 64 9 520 4631
Kaon Technologies Fx 64 9 520 3321
Auckland New Zealand
Networkers visit www.kaon.co.nz
Aviators visit www.kaon.co.nz/europa/272index.html
and www.kaon.co.nz/saanz/
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