Being a ham radio operator, and a practitioner of the dark arts of antenna design, I can't imagine why anyone would wish to bother with complicating something as simple, reliable and effective as a quarter-wave whip or half-wave dipole. Of all of the things you can spend time, energy, effort and money on to improve your experimental aircraft, I think the antenna would be about the last item on my list.
While in theory, there are many antennas that will outperform the simple whip or dipole, but in practice the difference is so minimal that it doesn't justify the added complexity. Besides, how much gain does one need? With a simple quarter-wave whip and a hand-held radio, I already have a range of 150 miles or more. Just my 2ยข worth, Lee KN4VN ----- Original Message ----- From: "Larry H." <lah...@yahoo.com> To: "KRNET" <kr...@mylist.net> Sent: Tuesday, February 09, 2010 4:46 PM Subject: KR> Antenna Questions/Carbon Fibre/Graphite After the previous questions concerning carbon and fiberglass arrow rods for making com antennas and the mention of carbon fibre/graphite rods I began to think more about it. My first inclination was, of course I wouldn't use carbon but now I would like to have this one question answered. My thinking created only one question in my mind for those who know for sure. If one were to take a graphite arrow rod for example, place copper tape lengthwise on the arrow shaft, wrap the tape completely around it, attach appropriate toroids, soldering and wiring to radio of course. Would the graphite tube in the center, (which we all know is conductive and reflective) reflect the radio signal in a 360 degree radius, (which is what we would want) away from the arrow shaft or would it (the shaft) just screw up the ability of the copper tape to be an antenna? I do know the copper could not come in contact with the graphite, hopefully the resin which makes up the arrow shaft will keep the copper seperated from the graphite fabric. Just wondering? if anyone knows for sure I would like to read your thoughts. Below is the link to RSTs airplane antenna kits which include all the supplies you need to fabricate your own antenna. http://www.rst-engr.com/rst/catalog/airplane_antenna.html Here is a link to the type of antennas a lot of composite aircraft guys used 15 or 20 years ago. I glued one of these in the fiberglass wingtip of my neighbors RV6A many years ago and it worked really well. I think Aircraft Spruce sells these as well. A little pricey compared to making your own from a RST kit. http://www.advancedaircraft.com/ Larry Howell _______________________________________ Search the KRnet Archives at http://www.maddyhome.com/krsrch/index.jsp to UNsubscribe from KRnet, send a message to krnet-le...@mylist.net please see other KRnet info at http://www.krnet.org/info.html
