Hi guys,
I'm hoping some of our very talented team of builders can give me some
advice on a unique Com radio antenna setup I am planning. I've been
flying my trigear now for 4 years and have never been happy with the
transmit and receive distances I'm getting from my radio......a Garmin
250 XL GPS/Com unit. Initially I installed the Bob Archer antenna, but
after a year or so I wasn't happy with the performance and switched to a
Comat "general aviation" type antenna. I built an aluminum ground plane
about 8" wide and 20" long which I installed inside the fuselage behind
the bulkhead. The Comat antenna was mated to that ground plane. I got
better performance than with the Bob Archer, but still I think I should
be doing better than a 15 mile maximum range. I had the radio bench
checked, and the coax cable checked by an avionics shop, and they
pronounced everything in good working order. Their suggestion was to
glass in a copper wire mesh ground plane to the bottom inside of the
fuselage, and then to mount the antenna EXTERNALLY under the belly of
the plane. A couple of questions arise. Has anyone else ever tried
this? What were the results? and more importantly, what should the
dimensions be for the copper wire mesh (screen)? I was thinking that
the larger the better, but there may be some technical calculation that
I'm unaware of that would dictate a particular size. Any and all
comments and advice will be appreciated. Thanks!
Regards,
Garry V. Stout
N4220S Tri A060
|