KRnetHeads, Somebody asked about the proximity of antennas to each other earlier. You'd be surprised with how much clutter you can get away with before there's any real degradation. Take a look at http://www.n56ml.com/misc/10091413m_antennas.jpg for an example of how tight things can get and still work just fine. There are six antennas in this picture, and a total of eight (although I may have missed one or two) in the plane. Left to right in this picture are the ELT antenna (it needs a ground plane, which could be done in a few minutes with aluminum welding rod), Holux GPS antenna for the laptop and moving map software, old transponder antenna and aluminum disk groundplane (disconnected), Bendix King blade antenna for transponder (hiding under aluminum pie-plate ground plane up top), APRS ham radio antenna on the wall, and Byonics GPS antenna for the APRS. A little further to the right (but not in the picture) is the copper foil antenna embedded in the vertical stabilizer skin for COM radio, and another one that I didn't count is the ELT's portable antenna, which is strapped to the ELT for portability in case of an off-field landing. There's another one up front...the XMWX satelllite radio antenna. That's a lotal of nine antennas, eight of which are jammed in the aft fuselage between rudder cables, tailwheel cables, elevator cables, and seatbelt cables (all are visible in this picture). And people wonder why my plane is so heavy! There's one more, a GPS antenna built into the Airmap 1000, but it doesn't count either. I've used the remote antenna with it as a test, but that was senseless as they both have a clear view of the sky. And to be technical you could count the ICOM portable radio that I carry also, but it's "self contained" and never used while flying.
All these antennas work fine together. I have talked to Joe Horton serveral times with 150-175 miles between us. GPS always works, as does the transponder. On the way to Fontana Dam last weekend I tuned to a very weak AWOS station and flew several 360 degree circles to check "directivity" of the COM antenna. Theoretically there should be pronounced "lobes" facing fore and aft due to the steel cables acting like "directors", but there was a very minor difference in reception between straight-on and 90 degrees off. My radio is a fairly inexpensive ICOM-A200. So don't lose any sleep over your antenna installation... Mark Langford N56ML "at" hiwaay.net website at http://www.N56ML.com --------------------------------------------------------
