Can anyone say for sure that both the garmin 430W and SL30 have internal splitters for VOR and Glideslope. In seaching, it appears that some 430s do and even a couple SL 30s. Can I return my glideslope antennas?
Can anyone say for sure that both the garmin 430W and SL30 have internal splitters for VOR and Glideslope. In seaching, it appears that some 430s do and even a couple SL 30s. Can I return my glideslope antennas?
Confirmation on what Alton said; SL-30 has a single coax input for the nav side and splits out the GS internally. The GNS-430W has a seperate input for nav and GS so for it you'll either need both a nav and GS antenna or a diplexer (like a Comant CI-507) to split the GS signal out from a nav antenna.
An alternative to a splitter (which will cut down your signal strength to the VOR) is a very simple "stripped-wire" Glideslope antenna. Take a piece of Coax, strip off 18" of braid, and mount it in your cowl or on the windshield bow - put a BNC on the other end and connect it to the 430's GS input. Nice strong signal, and the VOR doesn't lose half it's input signal!
The homemade antenna is a great idea and way cheaper than the diplexer. Just so no one gets the wrong idea - the specs claim an insertion loss of 0.5 DB and that would translate to approximately 12% loss in signal level. I'm sure you didn't mean the half literally.
Wow - 0.5 dB - doesn't sound like much, but that translates into a lot of miles difference between a reliable VOR lock and unreliable noise with a flag. I'm a little surprised the internal unit does not pre-amp the signal first before splitting internally, that would be the common-sense way to do that.
Can I return my glideslope antennas?
