True enough, except not every word in every install manual is gospel. Many just have "recommendations" in them for certain things. Sometimes, the manuals aren't perfect, and of course can rarely take into account the huge variation between airframes, construction materials (composit, metal, tube/fabric, etc..), interconnected components, so on and so forth. Also, just because the manaul for component "X" says to keep "X a certain distance from Y", doesn't mean that the manual for "Y" may agree with that. It's one thing to take an individual component by itself, but it's quite another when taking things as a group of components or entire system. There are a lot of things that when done as a single component are done a certain way, but when used in a congolmeration are handled in a different way.
Not that this has anything in particular to do with antennas, as the original poster asked....spacing between the actual txpdr and antenna should be adhered to. Same goes for minimal lengths of GPS coax's (which just won't work if they are too short).
Just my 2 cents as usual (with my antennas mounted exactly like Mel's),
Stein.
