Europa aircraft are not carbon fiber, which eats RF energy for breakfast. In
our aircraft, most common installation is probably copper tape with toroid
baluns (no ground plane). For external antennae, cooking-foil ground planes
do work, and my reference stuff says 5-1/2" circular for transponder/DME.
Seem to recall 15" for comm/nav/ELT flat plate type, but 4 quarter-wave
dipoles with copper tape do work too. Dont make them bigger as in bigger is
better; won't work. As to whether they're really needed, can't say (carbon
fiber structure may act like an aluminum spam can), but they're easy enough to
fabricate.
Regards,
Fred FIllinger
Mentor, OH
On 9/27. Peter Bondar wrote --
<< As a long time reader of this group but who went for a BanBI instead would
anyone mind telling me what strategy they usd for ground planes for the
aerials. How much impact does not having a ground plane have and my pet
theory of: whats wrong with using cooking foil as a ground plane glued to the
inside of the hull with the aerial earth connector screw into physical
contact?>>
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